Second Generation
by Kaisers
Summary: Seele fractures in the aftermath of Third Impact. Keel plans to restore his former glory through war. Only an Evangelion can fight an Evangelion, hence he commissions Nerv-Beijing to construct an Evangelion that would be a counter to all others.
1. Joy of Rebirth

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion.

"Goodbye mother " And that was it. 3rd impact was over.

Shinji awoke to a truly alien environment; the sky above him was stained crimson, he could smell the LCL around him, the deactivated produced Evangelions were strewn about the immediate area. Lilith's decaying body was visible in the distance. Shinji looked to his left and saw Rei standing on water. For a moment Shinji thought to call out to her but when he blinked she was gone.

Shinji looked to his right and saw Asuka. Shinji moved closer and stared at her. The pain of Asuka's final rejection burned within him and he drew on the pain as he reached for her throat and began to strangle her.

Suddenly he felt a warm hand on his cheek and he looked down at Asuka, he saw that she was different. The red sky seemed to tint her eyes brown, Shinji couldn't help but think of Yui.

As he thought of his mother tears came to his eyes, his hold on Asuka's neck slackened as the pain of Asuka's betrayal was washed away by a great sadness for at this moment Shinji was brought to a terrible realization.

"I'm all alone, Asuka's abandoned me; and so has mother." Shinji thought to himself.

Memories of Third Impact flooded his already battered mind. He thought of all those who died at the hands of the JSSDF and those who were hurt because he failed to pilot Evangelion 01. The guilt was crushing. Shinji's thoughts were interrupted by Asuka.

"How disgusting…" Asuka's gaze had shifted to the severed head of Lilith. Shinji followed her gaze to the head that was already decomposing into LCL. Quite suddenly Asuka pushed Shinji away and rose to her feet, the calmness that emanated from her just a moment before had vanished, and was replaced with a cold rage.

"Asuka what is it?" Shinji questioned. He was actually scared, all the times Asuka was angry with him before didn't match up to how she looked now.

Asuka's reply was slow but uttered with the deepest of loathing "You let me die."

"Asuka please..." Shinji said as he regained his footing but Shinji's reply was cut off by Asuka knocking him back to the ground.

Asuka was shaking with anger "You think I care about what you have to say! Just get away from me! Go on! Leave!"

"But-" Shinji's reply was cut off by a vicious slap.

"You didn't even try to help me!" She raged at him "You were right next to your EVA and you didn't even try to help me!" She started to sob.

"But I was cut off!" Shinji started to speak but was stopped once again by Asuka who continued to yell at him.

You were right there! You could have helped me and stopped all of this!" Asuka suddenly cringed and fell to her knees as pain shot through her wrapped arm. Shinji looked Asuka in the eyes and saw that she was crying. They both fell silent, Shinji walked closer to help Asuka up but Asuka drew away. "Get away from me. Now!"

Shinji didn't know what to do. He was sure Asuka was hurt and wanted to help but Asuka seemed so angry with him that Shinji was also sure she would lash out and possibly hurt herself. The guilt of third impact combined with the fact that he nearly let Asuka die and that his mere presence caused her pain was too much for Shinji. All Shinji could do was give Asuka her space.

"I'm sorry Asuka." Shinji turned his back on Asuka and walked away.

-Meanwhile at NERV-

"Damn!" Technician Shigeru Aoba swore in frustration as he frantically searched for anyone within the bombed out Nerv complex. There were clothes and LCL everywhere but no bodies seemed to be lying around.

As the silence began to irritate him he started to talk to himself. "Most of the lighting seems fine so we still have energy…" He considered this for a moment until his eyes fell upon a security camera. An idea hit him; once again he muttered to himself. "I could check every level for survivors with the camera system." And with that he hurried off to Central Dogma.

He ran through several hallways until he reached the entrance to Central Dogma, the door was partially shot up but he managed to get it halfway open and stumbled through. As he crossed the threshold he saw how truly terrible central dogma looked, bullet holes were everywhere, chairs and desks that were used as makeshift cover were toppled over. LCL was spattered everywhere. Aoba carefully made his way up to his old desk and spotted a working computer, he grabbed a shot up chair, sat down, and began to access the cameras.

After about an hour of watching the camera's Aoba was once again frustrated by the lack of company and the silence was beginning to wear on him. He was looking through the operational cameras once more when he very distinctly heard shuffling behind him. He turned quickly. "Oh! What the fuck."

A great deal of LCL was coagulating; Aoba began to reach for his sidearm when he realized that the LCL seemed to become solid and was forming up in the shape of a person. Bones, Veins, muscle and skin formed until at last Aoba realized who it was.

"Maya!" He rushed to her and helped her sit up.

She looked completely dazed "Shigeru..." She started "Where are my clothes?"

Aoba's face went very red as he took his hand off her shoulder and he spun around and looked in any other direction.

"Check where you died." He said sheepishly, she looked around at the last place she could remember and conveniently found her clothes next to a laptop. As she pulled on her clothes she glanced at the screen and suddenly remembered what happened before she died.

"I need you." She read off the laptop "Ritsuko..." Maya sighed as she remembered the details of her death.

"Yo Maya, are you okay?" Maya was snapped out of her daze by Aoba, who was still turned around. "Are you decent?"

"Yeah" She replied pulling on her uniform.

Aoba turned to her. "What do you think we should do? I don't think any of us are trained in post apocalypse recovery."

"I don't know. I never imagined we would come back like this."

Aoba looked surprised; he obviously thought Maya would have some idea of what to do.

But Maya continued "With only you and I there's not much we can do. Personally I think we should wait for more senior personnel to return. In the meantime, can I use that computer?"

The initial shock of having Maya back wore off and Aoba sat up and gestured to her to take his seat.

As he sat up he commented on her idea. "I bet the Commander would know exactly what to do."

Aoba's reply was largely ignored; as Maya was extremely busy at the computer terminal that Aoba set up for camera watching.

"Can we get the Magi online?" He asked.

"I just checked the Magi; but they're locked down at the moment. It seems that a top-level officer locked them down, so that means the Commander, Vice Commander, or Dr. Akagi." She responded; still busy with the computer.

"So we can't use the Magi?" Aoba guessed.

"Yeah, we'll need a verification code to unlock the Magi, so now I'm checking the access logs to see where the Commander's were when 3rd impact occurred. If we can get to one of them we should be able to unlock the Magi."

She opened a few access logs then continued "From what these logs show both the Commander and Doctor Akagi were present in Terminal Dogma when 3rd Impact started, I think I should check it out."

Aoba couldn't argue with her reasoning, he could see that getting the Magi online and having one of the superiors back was their best bet in figuring out what they should do. But he was worried about her going alone into Terminal Dogma, "Maybe I should come with you, some of the lower levels don't have any power, and it would be bad if you got stuck in an elevator somewhere."

"Negative, it makes the most sense for you to wait here for the Vice Commander, I'll stay in Terminal Dogma in case Commander Ikari or Doctor Akagi return first, and we'll stay in radio contact and check in every 10 minutes." And without another word Maya began to head off for Terminal Dogma.

Shigeru was stunned. He'd never seen Maya like that, but he was also reasonably sure that nothing he could say would stop her.

Maya's mind was racing as she headed down to Terminal dogma.

_The computer records showed that Ritsuko was with the Commander in Terminal Dogma when Third Impact began. This obviously has to do with Gendou and Rei, since they were the only ones with her. And when Lilith emerged from terminal dogma it looked like Rei. Could that explain Rei's purpose in terminal dogma? But why was the Commander there? Was he trying to stop Rei? None of this can explain Ritsuko's presence. _

She turned the facts over in her mind until she came to the conclusion that she had to be missing something; a piece of evidence that would explain everything.

Maya only hoped that more people would start waking up soon, preferably Ritsuko, and there was still the matter of finding the Eva pilots.

Maya's thoughts were interrupted by her radio. "Are you there yet? We have some people reclaiming human form up here." Aoba called to her.

"Has the Vice-Commander come back yet? Please brief those who have woken up and separate them into search parties and have them search Nerv for other survivors."

"Alright will do, Aoba out."

She finally reached the door to Terminal Dogma and swiped her access card at the reader. The doors opened up, however Maya couldn't see a thing, all the lights in Terminal Dogma were off and the air was slightly hotter than the normal levels in the NERV facility.

"I can't see a thing; the power from this level must have been diverted." She said to herself. Maya noticed a gleam in the darkness. She walked a few steps forward and knelt to pick it up.

_Glasses… the kind that Commander Ikari wears, how did these get here?_ She thought.

Her radio blared to life "Maya!" She nearly fell over from shock.

"What is it now Aoba?" was Maya's exasperated reply.

"Maya!" a new voice came from her radio.

"Hyuga!" Suffice to say Maya was relieved to have someone else she knew back. "You've come back!"

"Yeah I just eh, I don't really know what happened but Aoba's brought me up to speed, listen Maya I have something to tell you and it's about Third Impact."

Hyuga was about to continue when he heard Aoba fussing with a computer behind him. "Aoba, what are you doing?"

"Well it looks like power was diverted from some non essential systems before 3rd impact." Aoba began.

"Yes, it needed to be done, the JSSDF cut our power and we needed all the power we could get." Hyuga explained.

Maya could hear their conversation. "Can you restore power from there? All the lighting is off down here, getting them back on would really help with my search."

Finally feeling as if he had a use Aoba was quick to obey. "Yeah I can restore those systems. It'll turn on the lights and restore air circulation in some areas."

"Okay fine, now as I was saying Third Impact-" Hyuga started but was cut off by a scream issuing from his radio. "Maya! What's wrong!?"

Her voice was shaking when she responded "It's the Commander! He's down here, but he's dead. And there's someone else… It's Doctor Akagi! She's breathing! I'm going to bring her back up."

-12 Hours Later. January Third, 2016. Nerv Medical Ward-

Ritsuko woke quietly and remembering that she had been shot began to check her body. She slowly got to her feet, put on her clothes that were resting on a chair. She was about to leave the room when the door slid open and Maya walked in.

"Maya? What's going on here?" Ritsuko asked.

For a moment Maya just looked at her. Then cried out. "Senpai!" She moved forward and clutched at Ritsuko's lab coat tightly and started to sob. Ritsuko was quite shocked by this, as was Hyuga who had just rounded the corner into the infirmary.

"Er… Doctor, well I've come to brief you, but it seems that you're busy at the moment so I can come back later" Hyuga said with a smile.

"No that's fine you can brief me now." Ritsuko's face was a bit pink and she backed up a few steps from Maya.

"Yes Commander" He replied curtly.

Ritsuko was confused. "Pardon me, I am not your Commander."

"Well, we should make our way to the briefing room and I'll explain everything"

-Nerv Briefing Room-

Hyuga took the job of briefing Ritsuko on the events after Third Impact while Maya and Commander Akagi listened.

"So people are being brought back to life?" Ritsuko asked.

"Yes Commander, some have begun to come back, but we have no idea why. We thought you'd have some ideas."

"So that's what happened to me?" She questioned.

"Yes Commander."

"Now tell me why I'm the Commander."

Hyuga continued "Well Ex Commander Ikari is dead and Ex-Vice Commander Fuyutsuki is being detained so you seemed like the next logical choice."

Ritsuko was surprised. "Gendo's dead?"

"When we found him he was decapitated." Hyuga said grimly.

Ritsuko felt a surge of hatred when she thought of Gendo. "And why is the Ex-Vice Commander being detained."

"Well that's brings us to the next part of the briefing, before 3rd impact Vice-commander Katsuragi-" Before he could continue Hyuga was cut off by the new Commander.

Ritsuko was sorry to cut him off but she had to say something. "What? Who could make Misato the Vice Commander?"

"Well…" Hyuga and Maya looked very uncomfortable and then Hyuga suddenly burst out "No more questions back to the briefing!"

He then continued. "As I was saying, before Third Impact Vice-Commander Misato asked me to hack Nerv's database, I eventually cracked said database and found a wealth of information. There was some very interesting stuff but the best included logs of Gendo speaking with the Human Instrumentality Committee. We also have some logs of Gendou speaking with then Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki. I managed to learn about Seele's proposed instrumentality, and Gendou's proposed instrumentality. Seele and Gendou betrayed mankind, Fuyutsuki knew all about Gendou's plan and did nothing, he can't be trusted."

Most of this Ritsuko already knew but she thought that Hyuga's information gathering techniques were superb. "I agree" was the new Commander's reply. She continued. "And if this briefing is over and if things are as I left them, the Magi will need to be unlocked and I need to start giving some orders. Also where is Misato; ah I mean the new Vice Commander?"

"We've set up search parties and she's leading one of them" Hyuga answered promptly.

"Very well. Then I'd like you to arrange meetings with Maj-, I mean, Vice Commander Katsuragi and the Ex-Vice commander."

"Yes Commander Akagi" And with that Ritsuko left the room closely tailed by Maya. Maya was still bothered about the fact that Ritsuko was with Gendo before Third Impact. So she took this opportunity to ask Ritsuko when they were out of earshot.

"Senpa- ah, I mean Commander Akagi the computer logs show that you were in Terminal Dogma at the same time as Gendo. Please tell me, what were you doing?"

Ritsuko paused before answering this question. "I was going to self destruct Nerv rather than let Gendo initiate Third Impact."

-Somewhere in the blood red waters-

He swam from bank to bank searching frantically. Occasionally he would peek his head above water and look around; finally after hours of searching he found what he was looking for. The outline of a person on a white beach, he hurried in that direction. When he reached her he came to Asuka's side and saw that she was asleep.

"WARK! WARK-WARK!" Penpen warked as loud as he could.

Asuka opened her eyes but she didn't get up or do anything else. All the penguin could think to do was wait.

-About 20 minutes later-

Penpen heard the sound of a motor, he looked and saw his owner at the aft of a small motorboat, Misato landed the boat, walked to Penpen, and picked him up.

"You're such a smart penguin." Misato said happily as she smothered the penguin with affection.

"Wark…" Was the penguins reply.

Both woman and penguin approached an apathetic Asuka who was sitting on the ground hugging her knees. Misato approached Asuka and tried to help her up.

"Asuka…" Misato was teary eyed when she embraced Asuka and helped her to her feet.

Misato noticed that Asuka only got up reluctantly. "Asuka, are you okay? What's wrong? Did you see Shinji?" the last question stirred something within Asuka.

She looked Misato in the eyes. "He's left us, the coward",

Misato could already see what had transpired here. "What did you do to him?"

"I told him the truth. He let me die." she said coldly.

"You did what!? How could you do that! You know how he is, he'll blame himself!" Misato raged at the girl.

Asuka looked at Misato, who was barely holding back her tears for Shinji. "Because this is all his fault." Asuka said dismissively.

Misato grabbed the collar of Asuka's plug suit and nearly lifted her from her feet "How could you be so heartless!? When we find Shinji you WILL apologize! Do you understand me?"

Asuka was unfazed. She stared at Misato feeling rebellious.

Chapter end.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them at

.me/Kaisers


	2. Dissention

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion.

-About 36 hours after Third Impact, Nerv-05, Hamburg Branch -

Dr. Wilhelm woke from 3rd impact in his office then for seemingly no reason he started laughing hysterically, he did manage to say some words between laughs most of what he said couldn't be understood but some key words could be heard "Ikari... stopped... impact"

After about a minute he realized the fact that he was a grown man on the floor laughing and also naked. He went to his chair and put on his clothes; he noticed his laptop and remembered what he did before Third Impact.

The last words he heard echoed in his mind. "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world." Wilhelm felt sickened with himself for being a member of the organization that nearly ushered in Third Impact; however Wilhelm reserved most of the blame for one man, a man he hated more than anyone else.

"Lorenz Keel…" he chuckled. "The bastard failed."

He heard a voice coming from his laptop startled him. "Are any of you there?" It was Vladimir Romanov, the 4th member of Seele and Head of Seele's Russian branch. Wilhelm knew that Vladimir had no love for Keel and slowly came up with a plan.

An arrogant smirk crossed his face as he replied. "It seems as if Keel's little plan failed"

As soon as he mentioned Keel's failure he heard a sharp intake of breath from Vladimir, Wilhelm knew just what to say, he continued. "You know Vladimir, Keel's failure won't look good to the others."

Vladimir knew what was behind Wilhelm's words and caught on quickly "Just what are you proposing, a coup perhaps?"

"Right in one old friend, help me, your influence will be invaluable, I know how much you hate Keel, he usurped your place as the leader of Seele, and you can have your revenge." He played on Vladimir's pride.

There was a lengthy pause "...Very well, but we must be sure of our allies, which members do you believe could be turned against Keel?"

Wilhelm thought quickly and began to list members to Vladimir. "I believe Arthur Bennett (Seele Canada), Alfred Wolsey (Seele Western Europe), Edward Franklin (Seele United States), Alexander Freidrich (Seele Germany) and if we are lucky Naruhito Matsushima (Seele Japan), however I see no hope in getting Liao Huangdi (Seele China), Nikos Siannus (Co-head of Seele in the Mediterranean) Romulus Marcius (Co-head of Seele in the Mediterranean) or Sa'ud Faisal (Seele operations in the Middle East)."

Vladimir was surprised. "All of them are against Keel? Even Edward? He is one of Keel's confidants, are you certain he will side with us?"

"Yes he likes Keel but he is greedy and I've recently invented something of which this world has never seen." Wilhelm stated confidently.

Vladimir's interest was piqued "Tell me."

Wilhelm understood Vladimir's curiosity but wanted to show his creation to all of his conspirators at once. "In time old friend."

"Well if all of them join us we shouldn't have any problems, but Keel must be killed as soon as possible. If he escapes us his influence could be serious trouble."

"Agreed." Dr. Wilhelm was amazed at his ability to quickly carry out a plan that would topple an organization that commanded more influence than the United Nations itself. A confident smile lit his features "I am a genius." he said to himself.

-About a week after 3rd impact - Seele London Branch-

Lorenz Keel woke up he looked around and saw nothing. Despite the darkness Keel knew this room all too well, or so he thought. But after careful observation he realized that this room was only similar to the Seele meeting room.

A voice rang out surprising him "Well looks like the sedatives are wearing off. Keeping him drugged was a good idea. It gave us enough time to deal with the other issues that have been plaguing us."

Keel turned and saw that one of the towers had activated, it was displaying "03 Sound Only"

Keel found his tongue. "Tell me what's going on, I demand it!"

He was cut off quickly "Silence!" A second tower had turned on, it was displaying "04 Sound Only"

Then the first was talking again. "Now now, let's answer the man's question."

The next tower activated with "02 Sound Only" displayed, also several more towers activated for a total of six.

"You are being judged for crimes of an unspeakable sort, you betrayed mankind to the nothingness of 3rd impact, How do you plead?" The 03 tower boomed.

"Fools, what are you talking about? You were all in on this with me." Keel sounded confused.

Then another tower flickered on, but instead of a sound only image it was a middle-aged man with thinning red hair. His face was accented with a prominent mustache that seemed to quiver when he spoke; he was wearing a gray business suit over which was a lab coat.

"How the mighty have fallen. What used to be the world's most powerful man is at my mercy." Wilhelm stated with his thick German accent.

Keel's was shaking with rage and his face was a bit red. "Wilhelm! How dare you!"

Wilhelm was calm in contrast to Keel's anger. "What? You couldn't see this coming?" he taunted. "All the people that you stepped on to get where you were will be avenged as I now call for a vote, all those willing to pass down a sentence of death please say aye."

All seven towers voted in unison. "Aye."

Keel was in shock. "Wilhelm, this is madness." He said desperately.

Keel was ignored as Wilhelm continued "We, the members of Committee have just sentenced you to death. Your sentence will be carried out tomorrow at noon. You will be hung from the neck until dead."

Wilhelm looked at Keel one last time with a grin then called out. "Guards take him to a holding cell!" Two men approached Keel and dragged him away; after he was gone the members of Committee continued their meeting.

Edward spoke first. "Tell me Alexander, the members that have refused to join us, how many have been captured?"

Alexander replied quickly. "We have captured and executed one member who refused to join us against Keel and are actively searching for the rest."

"That's good, who?" Wilhelm asked.

"Sa'ud Faisal is dead and his assets have been seized, the Middle East is ours." Alexander continued. "We will need to find another committeeman to replace him."

The next to speak was Naruhito "The rest must be found. Individually they are no trouble but if they band together they could put up a good fight. We don't want this to come to war."

"Yes, that is true. A war started over private interests is unacceptable." Edward added.

Wilhelm was smiling his confident smile again "I have been aware of Keel's idea involving Third Impact for quite some time, I am glad that you all have joined me in ousting Keel. I knew rational men still existed in Seele, or now as we call it Committee. Our purpose is to ensure that humanity is free from the threat of instrumentality. As our first mandate we will crush Keel's influence and usher in a new age where humanity is free to choose its own destiny." With these words the other members of Committee looked somewhat more assured.

Several of the other members of Committee openly applauded and there were murmurs of "Well said!" and "Hear hear!" from several of them.

Wilhelm raised his hand for silence and the other members of Committee waited with bated breath as Wilhelm continued. "Our other concerns apart from Seele members who are on the run are the effects of Third Impact. Please let's all do our part in ensuring that panic and rioting in our respective countries is kept to a minimum. And with that unless anyone has any other issues to bring up-" He waited a moment in case anyone wanted to speak. "Very well, our first meeting as Committee is adjourned."

-Same building - Holding cell-

The two men roughly led Keel out "Ouch! Be careful" he cried.

"Shut up." was the only reply Keel got as they led him perhaps more roughly than before to a cell and threw him inside.

Keel was crazy with rage, he had never before experienced such humiliation. All his thoughts were wrathful; first he focused his rage on Shinji. "Ikari's stupid boy, we could have been Gods." Then his mind turned to Wilhelm. "Dammed scientist! I knew he had it out for me! All because I took him away from his precious woman, he must have turned the others against me."

In his rage he punched the cell wall, which only accomplished Keel hurting his hand. Nursing his hand, Keel leaned against the wall and caught his breath. "I can't believe this is happening."

A sly voice answered him "Oh and you don't even know the full story!"

Keel spun around and fell back hitting his head against the wall. The visitor continued in the same sly voice. "Ah, hey, don't do that. You're making me fail my mission."

Keel looked up at his visitor the first things he noticed was that he was quite short, with a face that seemed to be stuck in a permanent grin. He wore a pinstriped black suit with a red tie underneath, he looked professional but his hair was long and reached the middle of his back.

The grinning stranger took an envelope out of jacket pocket that was adorned with an ornately designed green eye.

"A jade eye… I see. You have been sent by him?" Keel deduced.

His visitors grin widened. "Yes, Mr. Huangdi sends his regards, I'm here to extract you." And with that he pulled a card from his jacket, slid It through the card reader on Keel's cell, and the door opened. "Come on, we've got to get out of here." He led Keel out and into a corridor which was surprisingly empty. As they continued Keel heard a great many people behind doors but no one came into the corridor.

Eventually Keel had to ask "Why isn't there anyone out here, I thought there would be tighter security."

His rescuers face broke into a sly grin and he laughed. "Heh actually you're right. The security here is quite impenetrable. Normally it would be impossible for anyone to get in here without getting perforated or severely electrocuted."

Keel was curious "Then how did you get me out?"

"Well that's a long story but I suppose I can tell you as we make our escape, you see my master is far less trusting than you. He knew that Wilhelm hated you and planted spies in Wilhelm's organizations. In fact my master has spies with all of the other members of Seele. My Master out of all of Seele regained human form last and after learning what Wilhelm did, began to work against him. My Master used his vast network of spies to find you and ordered me to free you. You see, I was deployed here as a spy for about 8 years now, my authority at this base is unquestioned. I tripped an alarm in a room near here and the security in this area rushed to investigate."

He stopped walking and examined what appeared to be a normal wall. "Ah, we're here." He pulled a card from his vest pocket and swiped it into a near invisible slot on the wall.

"What are you doing?" Then Keel noticed that the wall had a slight indention, the indention slid away and revealed what seemed to be a hidden door. He looked inside and saw a ladder.

"Emergency exit, the only unguarded way out. Now listen, climb to the top and a car will be waiting for you it will take you to a jet that will bring you to my master."

"You're not coming?" Keel asked quickly, not wanting to lose his bodyguard.

"Nope, sorry Sir, Oh yeah! I almost forgot take this with you." As he handed Keel the envelope and his card key. "And now I must fake my own death. If I'm lucky I'll see you later." He turned to go.

Keel felt indebted to the stranger for saving him from certain execution. "Wait! At least tell me your name."

He gave his trademark grin and said "My name is Jian-Shan, goodbye Mr. Chairman." And with that he closed the hidden door in Keel's face and began to walk back to the cell.

When he reached the cell he walked inside and locked himself in. He then reached in his pocket, took out a small tablet, and swallowed it.

"Five days huh, I've never used this method to fake death before. I only hope it'll be enou-" Mere seconds after taking the tablet Jian swooned forward. He hit his head on the cell door and finally fell back in a fake death state.

-Meanwhile-

Keel climbed until he finally reached the top, when he reached it he stopped to catch his breath. "That was exhausting…" Keel saw a metal gate and stairs on the other side and above he could hear the sounds of a city. Keel moved to open the gate. "Where am I? They must have moved me before I was fully conscious."

He walked up the stairs and the metal gate closed behind him. Keel found himself in the middle of London; many people were looking at him with looks of bemusement, or were laughing at him outright because of his state.

His hair was disheveled, he was unshaven, and he was wearing something close to prison garb. He was embarrassed but his primary concern was meeting up with the team who was supposed to extract him. "What should I do now? He only said to wait here." Keel thought to himself.

Keel's question was answered by five men in identical dark suits with a jade eye on the left lapel. They broke up the crowd around Keel and steered him into a car. The car took off with a start and two other cars formed up about the car with Keel in it. They drove for about an hour, the car's radio was on and Keel could hear reports about rioting and looting in some countries. They eventually got onto the airport runway; there were some airplanes but none were moving. Keel figured that most governments would restrict travel until they restored some semblance of control over their populous.

They stopped next to a small jet; the driver got out of the car and opened the door for Keel. "Mr. Chairman, Mr. Huangdi awaits you." A hatch on the side of the jet opened and stairs came down at Keel's feet.

"Welcome aboard my friend! Don't be hesitant!" A man in jade robes befitting an ancient Chinese scholar stepped out. "Come, Mr. Chairman." He offered his heavily jeweled hand, Keel took it and climbed into the jet.

"You may take off when ready, Captain." Huangdi called into the cockpit. "Yes Sir." The pilot responded.

Keel looked around, the plane was furnished in a way that wouldn't be out of place in an ancient Chinese palace.

"There is a room in the back with a change of clothes, but first, my agent was supposed to give you something." Huangdi said expectantly.

"You mean this?" Keel had nearly forgotten about the envelope that was passed to him.

"Ah, yes, that's it, now I suggest you get some rest. It seems as if you've had a long day." Keel figured he was right and walked into the other room hoping to get a change of clothes and perhaps a shave.

Mr. Huangdi ripped the envelope open and removed a memory stick. Next he went to his laptop and loaded the memory stick. As soon as the information was displayed his eyes lit up as if with fire." He chuckled softly. "Rest easy Mr. Chairman we will soon regain our old power."

-One day later (January 8th, 2016); Formerly Seele, now Committee London Branch-

The seven members of Committee appeared in their meeting room.

Edward spoke first. "I just got word that Keel has escaped! Wilhelm! How could you let this happen?"

Alexander spoke next "I agree with Edward, this is bad, we haven't found any more members of Seele and now Keel leads them. The countries they control are already drawing away from us. Today China has threatened to withdraw from the UN over normally trivial matters, Huangdi must be behind this."

Alfred was next "I have information of increased friction along China's neighboring countries. I'd like to know how you feel about this Naruhito."

Naruhito's reply came quickly "I would like all of your assets at my side should Keel do something drastic. Wilhelm! You have much to answer for! You let Keel slip out from under your nose."

Vladimir spoke to defend Wilhelm "We have evidence that Keel's escape was arranged by a spy, the chief of security was found dead inside Keel's cell. Keel knew exactly how to get out and avoid our security measures. This suggests a spy is at work."

Soon all the members of Committee were arguing amongst each other about Wilhelm's incompetence or impending world war until Wilhelm decided to step in. "Gentleman please, we cannot afford to fight amongst ourselves. Yes, Keel has escaped but his position is quite hopeless he only has influence over a few nations. He could never hope to challenge our collective."

Despite his assurances some still didn't look convinced. Wilhelm was unfazed. "It looks as if they've lost confidence in me, I'll have to reveal my trump card sooner than planned." He thought to himself.

Before he could get to the revealing Wilhelm's cell phone rang, he checked the caller ID; it seemed to be from his research department. He felt annoyed that anyone would call during a meeting but he still answered the phone. "Can't this wait I'm in a meeting."

The technician spoke quickly. "Very sorry Sir but something terrible has happened. Our base in Germany has been attacked. Initial reports show that the prototype-construct and most of the source data for the Second Generation project appear to have been stolen."

For the first time in a long while Wilhelm felt unsure of himself. The arrogant smirk he usually wore disappeared "What! How can this be? What about the backup data?"

The technician answered again. "Whoever did this was a professional the backup data and offsite storage have all been destroyed."

For once Wilhelm didn't have a brilliant strategy that would solve his problems, he hung up his phone and queued his microphone. "Members of Committee a situation has come up. I must adjourn this meeting prematurely to deal with it."

Several members cried out "What?" and "Preposterous!" But still Wilhelm's tower grayed out indicating that he had cut his connection.

Chapter end.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them at

.me/Kaisers


	3. Second Generation

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion.

-Nerv 06, Beijing branch. Occupied by Seele, January 18th, 2016-

Keel walked into the meeting room, he had no idea what the meeting was about but Huangdi had promised him it would be good; as he stepped into the meeting room two men Keel knew very well were already present "Nikos … and Romulus! You're alive!" Keel exclaimed as he reached out to shake hands with his Seele brethren.

Nikos responded first in his deep calm voice "Yes Mr. Chairman, my complex was being stormed by Wilhelm's men and I was nearly captured, but Huangdi's men arrived in time to help me escape." Nikos, like all Seele members was an elderly gentleman. He had a liking for extravagant red suits and always walked with the aid of a cane, his graying hair was balding and though he spoke English very well he still had traces of a Turkish accent.

"I see, we'll have to pay Wilhelm back for that." Keel responded with just hint of vengeance in his voice.

Romulus was next "My story on the other hand is less exciting; I merely received an email from Mr. Huangdi stating that I simply had to come and see the data stolen from Wilhelm's mainframe." He finished with a bit of sarcasm. Romulus was the youngest member of Seele and in terms of influence had the least pull out of every other member. Unlike Nikos, Romulus still had a full head of dark hair; he had the bad habit of taking matters into his own hands and cost Seele several long term investments. His attitude was combative, and he was seemingly always scowling. Normally behavior as such would have warranted removal from Seele; however, Romulus had many underworld connections and could arrange for deals beyond what other Seele members would consider normal channels, these connections alone kept him part of the organization.

Nikos was curious "Well that makes one of us that know why Huangdi called this meeting."

Suddenly they all heard the sound of the door opening and turned to see Huangdi with a half a dozen of what appeared to be scientists at his back. He addressed them. "Well it seems as if you figured out why I have you all here today, yes the truth is we have discovered something in Wilhelm's stolen files, something big, something that will make the Evangelions look like antiques."

Huangdi was the head of Seele operations in China and one of the oldest members of Seele, the honor of such a position was handed down from generation to generation in Huagdi's family who supposedly were descendants of China's earliest ruling nobles. Huangdi had the propensity to wear very traditional Chinese clothing, however today he was wearing a simple black three piece suit which clashed heavily with his hair which was braided back in a single pony tail that reached the middle of his back.

Keels curiosity was piqued but his patience was at its limit for Huangdi's mysteries. "Enough with the grand cryptic statements just tell us what you have discovered and we will decide if it is as big as you say."

"Very well Mr. Chairman I'll get on with the presentation." Huangdi turned to the scientists and started giving orders. "Bring up the data for the Second Generation project and on the other screen bring up the alpha design specs for Evangelion 0-01." The scientists hurried to obey his orders and soon two projectors imbedded in the ceiling of the meeting room hummed to life and began to display a simple headline of "Second Generation" on the projection space opposite the meeting table.

"Doctor Gao the floor is yours." Huangdi bowed to the lead scientist and took a seat beside Keel.

The man referred to as Doctor Gao stepped forward, at first glance the man seemed very frail, he wore simple lab coat and seemed to radiate knowledge, but physically he was easily over 85 years of age. His hair was completely grey but he seemed to have retained all of it in his old age, additionally for such an old guy he looked fairly steady and could see very well without the aid of glasses.

Then the man referred to as Doctor Gao began to speak. "First of all I would like to thank the committee for funding my research and I would really like to extend-"

That was as far as Doctor Gao got as Romulus rudely interrupted him with a quick "Get on with it."

For a moment Doctor Gao looked as if he was annoyed with Nikos but the moment passed and he simply bowed and motioned to several assistants to pass out folders headlined Evangelion 0-01 and to dim the lights around the room.

After all the folders were handed out the meeting began in earnest. Doctor Gao began. "We will begin with a basic overview of the physical construction of this new Evangelion. We have recently been able to synthesize a new material and it shows incredible promise as a replacement for the heavy fortified armor current Evangelion models use. This material is based off of the hardened carapace that protected the core of the angel known as Zeruel." The projectors switched to a slide that showed a rough sketch of the angel.

The effect was immediate, Keel looked scandalized, Nikos had his mouth open in surprise and Romulus muttered something along the lines of "You've gotta be shittin' me." Though it was Keel who found his tongue first and spoke up "Are you serious? This material was salvaged from an Angel?"

The Doctor was quick to put their concerns at ease. "Please gentlemen, calm yourselves. Although this material was indeed salvaged from an angel it is only loosely based off of said angel's biology and has already been tested in live combat situations with no ill effects."

This seemed to calm the members of Seele though Nikos was still looking dissatisfied so Doctor Gao continued. "This material has led to an incredible increase in defensive capabilities, it soaks heat and most forms of energy amazingly well and stands up far better than fortified armor to both blunt force and cutting trauma. Additionally it is very light, so for Evangelion 0-01 we plan to fully replace the fortified armor with this Material, which should lead to an overall 30% decrease in weight while also allowing the Evangelion to withstand up to 20-25% more damage without any major system failures."

The projection slide switched to a simple bar graph which showed the increase in defenses compared to normal Evangelions. Next the presentation switched to a slide outlining the technical construction of the proposed unit 0-01.

Most of the Seele committeemen seemed impressed by that, Doctor Gao took heart and began to speak with more confidence. "Next is where I would say the most improvements have been made, specifically the mental interface and synchronization systems. As many of you know Evangelions are notoriously picky about whether they want to be operated or not, Evangelion 0-01 will not share this weakness, through much testing and experimentation we managed to derive a thought algorithm from Kaworu dummy plugs that will allow a pilot to force high levels of synchronization. In basic terms previous Evangelion models required some level of cooperation between the pilot and the contact experiment soul contained within the Evangelion core, this new system puts the control in the pilot's hands." He finished with a smile.

"Does anyone have any questions about what we've covered so far?" Doctor Gao asked.

Keel was the first to speak. "Was all of this stolen from Wilhelm's databases?"

The Doctor answered him "Not exactly Mr. Chairman, the research contained in Wilhelm's databases was extraordinary, I had recently hit a dead end in my quest for a second generation Evangelion and the data we acquired combined with what I already had was enough to consider the possibility of constructing a second generation Evangelion."

"I see, please continue." Keel replied. The projection slide switched to a top down picture of an Evangelion Feedback headset with a human brain placed next to it with a diagram that corresponded sections of the headset with different areas in the human brain.

Doctor Gao continued "What is the purpose of the dummy system? Did we not develop the dummy system to have pilots that are always ready to fight and without human weaknesses such as fear? However even our most sophisticated dummy systems are uncreative and rigid compared to a human pilot. So that brings us to the question, what if we could have a human pilot who never experiences fear. One who is always ready to fight, and will continue to fight even after experiencing grievous injuries."

"That's impossible." Nikos interjected

"Ah, but it is quite possible!" Gao responded happily. "Thanks to our new invention, The Advanced Mental Interface and Functional Feedback Headset will allow for manipulation and observation of a pilot's brain chemistry and electrical activity. Do we need a pilot to ignore wounds or stay focused? Why not trigger a release of Epinephrine? With this headset we have a means of controlling the emotions of our pilots; do we want a normally meek pilot to enjoy fighting? Through this headset we could stimulate the Nucleus Accumbens; commonly referred to as the "pleasure center" of the brain. Doing so would provoke genuine feelings of reward and over time lead a pilot to actually enjoy the experience of combat. This headset design has already been tested in several simulations and is fully functional."

"Are there any concerns about pilot welfare? Over a prolonged period of time would this have any ill effects on the pilot?" Nikos asked.

"An excellent question Mr. Siannus, currently there is no evidence that our headset could cause any harm to a pilot unless it was grossly misused. Most of our additions to Evangelion 0-01 beyond the basic defensive upgrades are to ensure the pilot is always in control and responsive to Seele's objectives."

The slide changed one final time and showed a view of the Evangelion with a highly technical blueprint that none of the Seele members could understand.

"Which brings us to our third and final improvement; through enormous amounts of research we believe we can interface a Magi system with our feedback headset to allow for a pilot to directly communicate with a Magi system during battle for on the fly information retrieval and through the Magi gain a greater ability to multitask. Consider this, a pilot could receive battle updates and pertinent information could be pushed directly to the pilot through the Magi, the more the pilot is willing to delegate to the Magi the more benefit he or she could receive through increased attention in other areas. This is of course all speculative as we have not yet been able to duplicate a Magi system compact enough to be interfaced into an Evangelion but we are confident that we will eventually be able to do so."

"At the moment how much of Evangelion 0-01 is complete?" Romulus asked sounding impressed.

Doctor Gao began to comment on his progress "As of now we are nearing completion of the physical construction phase including the new Zeruel based armor, basic interface and synchronization systems are also complete but we still need to construct a smaller version of the Magi. We're also having problems developing a program that would tie it all together with a pilot. The technical problems will be resolved with time, for now I believe our most pressing issue would be finding a pilot. If we could find a suitable pilot we could get much more detailed data from startup exercises and hopefully proceed with testing of the more sophisticated systems, I would estimate that we are around 40% complete with the upgrades but the basic Evangelion is operational."

Keel had heard enough to be onboard. "So we need a pilot? Has a contact experiment already been conducted with this Evangelion?"

The Doctor knew he had them sold on his idea. "Not yet, we do have several candidates though. We should be able to perform a contact experiment within the year; however the other key systems won't be complete for at least two to three more years."

"I see. Is there anything that could be done to speed development up?" Keel responded eagerly.

Doctor Gao was feeling confident so he asked big "I'd like my research staff and grant doubled, as well as Seele's help in retrieving a pilot if it is needed."

Huangdi felt as though Doctor Gao had made an excellent presentation, he met Keel's eyes and nodded to which Keel nodded back.

After Keel's assent Huangdi stood up and addressed Doctor Gao and his team. "I think we can arrange for all that, we will double your research budget and you will have our assistance in acquiring a pilot as soon as the Evangelion is ready."

Doctor Gao and his team all looked overjoyed and bowed deeply then Gao spoke to Keel "Thank you Mr. Chairman, now if you would excuse us we have much work to do." The entire troop of scientists left the room at Gao's back.

As soon as they were all gone Keel had one more issue he wanted cleared up. "Mr. Huangdi could you please brief us on what you know about Wilhelm's organization?"

Huangdi was happy to answer. "Wilhelm's organization is made up of former Seele members who were displeased with our decision to attempt a Third Impact; they feel that Instrumentality was better off not happening."

Keel was under the impression that Huangdi knew a lot more than he was letting on so he pressed him. "Is that all?"

Huangdi looked slightly nervous "Well you see even though Wilhelm is now the de facto leader of what used to be Seele territory he rightly fears that we will attempt to interfere in his new empire. Wilhelm's coming after us. He hates all of us, especially you Mr. Chairman, he won't rest until we're all dead. But if I am to die I won't die alone. I'll be sure to take Wilhelm with me."

"How do you know he will pursue us so aggressively, Wilhelm may want vengeance but he is not reckless. Would he really start a world war over something the general public will never know about?"

"I recently received a communiqué from my spies; Wilhelm knows we stole the 0-01 project data and knows that with it we could easily stand up to anything he throws at us."

Keel still did not fully understand what Huangdi was so worried about. "So why not use all our assets to complete it as soon as possible? Surely if we all pooled our considerable resources we should be able to complete it in fairly short order."

Huangdi was beginning to lose his patience. "It's not that simple, Doctor Gao is a genius and even he's having problems designing some of the systems that a second generation Evangelion will rely upon. The physical unit itself is nearly complete but he still needs to finish some of the more angel based systems and integrate the onboard Magi system in a way that it can aid the pilot. Did I forget to mention that we don't even have a pilot? Or that we have no idea if anyone could ever pilot this device while having the Magi in their head? Doctor Gao and his team are working tirelessly to complete them but Wilhelm is close to declaring war and there is a very real chance that Wilhelm could get to us before Doctor Gao finishes his work. Fortunately the rest of Committee is holding Wilhelm back, they don't want a world war over private interests. But it's only a matter of time before he convinces them to go to war, and if he comes after us and we don't have a way to defend ourselves we're all dead."

As the gravity of the situation set in Keel lost the air of confidence that nearly always surrounded him, the other members of Seele also seemed to shrink back. Even Romulus who usually had a scowl on his face looked a bit nervous.

"So you see our hopes rest with Doctor Gao's creation." Huangdi finished gravely.

Chapter end.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them at

.me/Kaisers


	4. Unforgettable

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion.

-Matsushiro, Japan. Nerv Branch 02. The first of February, 2016-

Fuyutski was woken by a guard knocking on his cell door. "It's time." The guard said simply as he opened the cell door. Fuyutski knew what was coming; he kicked aside a food tray on his cell floor and stepped out of the cell.

Once outside the guard cuffed him and began to lead Fuyutski through several hallways, occasionally people would mutter as they passed by him, some even sneered, finally the guard stopped at a door and knocked; a moment later it opened and a slightly harried looking Misato stepped through. "You took your sweet time huh?" She asked the guard playfully.

"Yes Ma'am I suppose I beg your pardon." He responded curtly with a salute.

Misato was still grinning, "At ease soldier, you're dismissed; I'll handle the prisoner from here." The guard dropped his salute and marched off.

Prisoner and warden' eyes met then Misato pushed Fuyutski back. "Get walking. I'll be taking you to the execution grounds. If you have any final words I'll deliver them." She said savagely.

Fuyutski could hear the malice in her voice; he wanted to give some sort of reasoning for his actions. "I can understand that you're angry Major Katsuragi, but-"

He was cut off by Misato who corrected him "I'm a Brigadier General now, so please address me as such."

For a man about to be executed Fuyutski was impressed. "You were promoted by three ranks? That's very impressive, you have my congratulations."

Misato was quick to respond. "Don't give me your congratulations, you used all of us at Nerv, as far as I'm concerned you're getting what's coming to you." She said harshly.

"Yes I am. I do not deny that." Said Fuyutski sounding resigned to his fate.

Misato was surprised at his acceptance but still she pushed him along. They had come to a stop before a large set of double doors, Misato stepped forward and pushed them open, Fuyutski shied away as the sun hit his eyes, but Misato ushered him through. Outside there were several soldiers wearing UN uniforms who saluted the Brigadier General, she led Fuyutski ten yards away from the soldiers and blindfolded him.

Once he was blindfolded Fuyutski could hear Misato step away and begin to speak with the soldiers. Finally he heard her speak. "Kozo Fuyutski. By special war tribunal you have convicted of crimes against humanity and have been sentenced to death by firing squad. Do you have any final words?"

Fuyutski thought it best to get it over with. "No."

Several tense seconds passed then Fuyutski heard Misato clearly state "Ready!" followed by the sounds of guns being leveled.

Fuyutski couldn't help but reflect upon his life, he wanted to re-experience the days when he was teaching Yui, he wished he could have done so many things differently. He wished he could have been more aggressive and stolen Yui away from Gendo.

His thoughts were interrupted by Misato as she ordered the soldiers. "Aim!"

Fuyutski's mind began reeling, he wished he could have stopped Yui from taking part in the contact experiment that bonded her to Evangelion 01, all of his perceived failures and hopes flooded his mind until the very moment that drove all everything away.

"Fire!"

Fuyutski didn't even hear the gunshots, pain flooded through his body; still blindfolded he fell to the ground bleeding. Fuyutski knew he was dying. His last thoughts were of Yui and how wonderful she looked at the very moment of Third Impact. As his consciousness faded he remarked to himself. "At least I saw her one more time."

-Massachusetts, Boston. 7:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, Tuesday; The second of February, 2016-

Daniel Balch woke up to his alarm blaring, he slowly sat up in his bed and got used to being awake, he looked at his alarm sleepily and shut it off. "I still wanna sleep." He said lazily and got back under the covers; he closed his eyes and was just drifting off when the worst possible thing happened

"It's time to get up Daniel! Come on! I'll make you some breakfast!" Daniel's father Gregory hollered while hammering on his door.

Daniel was really feeling tired, he attempted in vain to block out the sound of his father hammering on his door.

"I let you skip school yesterday you better be coming down soon!" He called again.

Daniel couldn't argue with his father's logic and he was sure he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep again so he pushed himself out of bed and slowly made his way downstairs to the kitchen. As soon as Daniel began walking downstairs the scent of bacon and eggs hit him; he realized he was quite hungry and began to shuffle along a bit faster.

Daniel reached the kitchen and sat down at the table where a plate of bacon, eggs and a cup of coffee greeted him.

"Eat up quick, and then go get ready for school; I'll drop you off before I head in to work." Gregory said with some excitement in his voice.

Daniel wasn't sure but he could sense that his father seemed more excited than usual this morning; almost like he was expecting something. "Dad, are you expecting something? I know you're a morning person but you seem practically giddy."

His dad regarded him for a moment then broke into a smile, "Should I tell you? I don't know, I was told to keep it a surprise." He teased.

Daniel was amused. "That's a nice suit you're wearing today, I wonder what would happen if it got some grease on it…" He wondered out loud, while brandishing a piece of bacon on his fork.

His father play defended himself with his hands and laughed "No way! This suit is new!

Daniel shook the piece of bacon at him.

"Alright alright, your mom is coming back today! I'll be picking her up from the airport later this afternoon. She told me to keep it a surprise for you, so you better act surprised when she gets here." He revealed.

Daniel was stunned; last he knew his mother was chosen by her work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work as a Bio-Engineer for some state of the art Biological Metaphysics Company based in China. "Wait, what? I thought Emm- Ah I mean Mom was still contracted to work in China for at least another year."

He stopped as his father was glaring at him, his father rarely got upset but Daniel could see that not using his mother's name had annoyed him. "Her name is Emma; you call her mom, especially when you see her later today." He said sternly.

Daniel's father was a nice guy; he was tall and had a muscular build with messy dark hair that was in the process of graying. He was a very talented lawyer that worked at a law firm based in Boston until his wife, Emma, got contracted by a China based Biophysics company. When she left for China, he still tried his best to make time for Daniel. Even without Emma around he usually had a very upbeat personality and always made an effort to encourage and support Daniel. Daniel really did appreciate his father's cheery attitude even though he didn't always show it. Daniel was sure he had upset his father and did feel bad about it so he apologized, finished up his cup of coffee, and walked back up to his room to get ready for school.

When Daniel reached his room he threw off his pajamas and threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. After doing so he looked himself over in a mirror.

His build was lanky. "I need to get more exercise or something." he commented, his brown eyes moved up to his short dark hair which was messy. "Maybe I should brush my hair or use gel." Next he got to his most sensitive feature. "I'm still too short." He frowned. "I wanna be taller! Both my parents are tall. Why am I so short!" He thought of his friends. "They're all getting taller…" He obsessed to himself.

Finally he sighed and figured that he better get downstairs or he'd be late for school.

From the moment he got to school the day felt like a blur, he couldn't keep his full attention on his lessons and he eventually started to think about his mom. The last time he'd seen her was a full two years ago. Daniel tried and tried but he found it very hard to remember the fine details of her face. He knew his teacher hated cell phones in class but Daniel was curious so he flipped out his cell phone and scrolled back to one of the very first pictures he received on his phone. As soon as the picture loaded he noticed how different he looked from his mother, very straight, light brown hair, soft features, blue eyes, and uncharacteristically tall for a woman.

He looked for another moment until he realized that the lecture had stopped and his teacher was looking right at him. "Daniel! No cell phones in class." His teacher barked.

"Sorry Sir!" Daniel said as he snapped his phone shut and pushed it into his pocket.

"Well then, would you please come up to the board and solve this problem." His teacher said sternly while pointing to a complex algebra problem. "Uh… sure." Daniel said as he slowly walked up to the white board. Algebra was never Daniel's forte but he tried his best at the problem. "So you see, X equals 32." Daniel said to his teacher.

His teacher, Mr. Carroll, was unusually stern for a public school teacher and usually wore a gray suit with square rimmed glasses. Both of which seemed to magnify his ability to make math boring. Daniel felt that it wasn't because he was a bad teacher; it seemed that he just lacked energy while teaching.

Professor Carroll looked over the problem quickly and nodded, "Go ahead and sit back down. Next time I see you with a cell phone in class its detention." Daniel nodded and returned to his seat after which the class grinded on at its usual rate.

Finally the bell rang and Daniel began to leave the classroom until he was stopped by Mr. Carroll, "Daniel, please wait for a moment." He said kindly.

Daniel just hoped he wasn't going to be given detention. "Yes, Professor?" Daniel just wanted to get whatever it was out of the way so he could go home.

"Several of my colleagues over at MIT are saying that Emma is coming back today." Mr. Carroll gave a rare smile. "I worked with her when she was writing her dissertation; I just wanted to ask you to have her give me a call if you could. I'd like to catch up with her." He chuckled. "Hell with her being gone for two years I bet you two have a lot of catching up to do."

Daniel was astonished that the teacher who always seemed so impersonal was asking about his personal life, at the moment Mr. Carroll seemed like he was light years away from his in-class persona. "Yeah I do have a lot of questions to ask her!" Daniel smiled and continued "I'll make sure she gives you a call." Daniel said as he turned to leave.

"Thank you Daniel, make sure you ask her to teach you some better algebra skills." His teacher joked.

Daniel grinned and answered back "Alright, I'll ask her that for sure, but only if you ask her to give you some advice on how to put some energy into your lessons."

After talking with Mr. Carroll, Daniel checked his watch, it was 4:15, and Daniel knew that unless he rushed he wouldn't be able to make the bus back home, so he sprinted out to the bus stop and just barely managed to get there before it left. The ride back to his home was uneventful but Daniel was excited at the prospect of finally seeing his mother again. After he got off the bus, he walked the short distance to his home and stopped just before opening the door. Daniel looked himself over, took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

The house was mostly dark so Daniel turned on a few lights and called out, "Is anyone here?" Daniel waited but there was no answer. He figured that maybe his father had taken his mom out for dinner, "Can't believe they wouldn't take me." He said to himself, but still he grinned and turned on the television. A few hours later it was 8 o'clock and Daniel had called his father several times but had received no replies. Daniel was just about to give up and go to his room when he heard the door open.

Daniel's heart was thumping so fast he could feel it in his chest and as he crossed the threshold into the living room he saw his father opening the door for someone to come in, but this someone wasn't Daniel's mother. She was a stout little Chinese woman wearing beige office attire with long black hair. Her face was wrinkly and it reminded Daniel of a turtle.

"Dad… what's going on, and who is this?" He said while pointing at the woman.

His father was looking grim, "Maybe you should sit down Son, and I'll go make our guest some tea." He said looking very perturbed.

Daniel was still confused; his father wasn't the type to act like this. Daniel watched as his father walked over to the kitchen and as Daniel turned his attention back to his "guest" he found her looking over her house with what looked like a mixture of distaste and boredom. He didn't bother saying anything he just waited until his father returned to the room.

"Here you go." He said as he handed the woman a mug with some black tea in it. She looked it over and started to drink quietly. "So would you please explain the situation to us?" Gregory said.

The turtle looking lady looked him over for a moment then began to speak in perfect English. "Well you see, my name is Li Hua and I am here to represent the Shen Corporation who contracted one Emma Balch to work at our Beijing branch. Yesterday your wife was asked to assist our lead scientist in performing a simple experiment involving a next generation energy recouping device."

Both Daniel and his father stared blankly at the stranger. "A what?" Daniel couldn't help but say.

"In simple terms it is a component that could be installed in any device that would save energy and in turn promote efficiency." She said slowly as if she was explaining the concept to a child, she continued. "You see during this test the device malfunctioned and discharged the energy it was attempting to retain." She took a deep breath and looked very nervous as she continued to speak. "It's never easy to say these type of things, but your wife was struck by the energy this device released, she is currently in a coma and being cared for at our facility."

Daniel couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You mean she was going on vacation and you people had her participate in some test anyway!" Rage flowed through him; he didn't trust this stupid looking woman. "What kind of cutting edge lab doesn't take precautions!" He stopped as his father cleared his throat and began to speak calmly.

"Daniel is correct, why would you ask her to be involved with an experiment when she had made it clear that she was leaving for a vacation the following day?"

The woman looked at both Daniel and his father, sighed and then responded. "Our lab is one of the leaders in producing and developing world changing biochemical and energy saving products; please do not imply that we did not take precautions. The accident that occurred was unprecedented; we had no way of seeing this coming. That said we will be taking full responsibility for what happened. We are prepared to settle your wife's contract."

Daniel was disgusted; he didn't want to hear someone try to bargain with him while knowing that his mother was hurt somewhere. "I don't want to hear this." He said slowly as he got up to leave. All Daniel wanted to do was go to bed early. As he walked back up to his room he could hear what sounded like a heated argument between his father and Li Hua.

When Daniel got to his room he didn't even bother to change into his pajamas and as he passed his mirror he didn't comment on his height. He fell onto his bed fully dressed and tried to forget about what had just happened.

Chapter end.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them at

.me/Kaisers


	5. What a Long Strange Trip Its Been

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion.

-Massachusetts, Boston. The Third of February, 2016. 2:36 PM-

Daniel woke to the feeling of the sun on his face; he pushed himself out of bed still feeling a bit groggy. He walked downstairs and grabbed some juice out of the fridge and poured himself a glass. A few minutes later he heard the front door open and the telltale sound of his father placing his keys on a key rack.

His father entered the kitchen and saw Daniel sitting at the table. "I see you just woke up." He said listlessly.

Daniel did want to know what happened after he left so he figured now would be the best time to ask. "Dad… what did that woman want with us?"

His father sighed then began to speak. "It got pretty bad after you left, we yelled at each other for a while. They wanted to settle her contract in exchange for us not pressing charges."

"I don't want any of their money."

His father looked at him a moment and gave a slight grin. "Yeah I figured. Don't worry about any of that, I refused their offers. I'm just glad that you're handling this well."

Daniel looked at him, he knew something was coming. He knew that his father always liked to give a compliment before asking something of someone.

His father continued. "There's something else, and I know you won't like it."

Daniel didn't care he simply waited for the other shoe to drop.

"You see, your mother is in a coma." Daniel didn't really like hearing this but he allowed his father to continue. "The way they described it to me was that the damage to her brain was very severe. They say that she will never regain consciousness. That woman, Li Hua, she wanted me to give the order to pull the plug on her. That's when I started yelling at her."

Daniel still didn't see what his father wanted of him.

"You see they just wanted to give us a chance to accept their terms. In a week's time she will be pronounced brain dead."

Daniel was stunned; he didn't know what to say.

"They offered to fly us out, so we could see her one last time. I want you to go. But if you don't want to that's fine."

His father looked at him for several seconds, and then Daniel finally blurted out. "I want to go see her. It's been two years…I can't even remember what she looks like." He finished as if he was ashamed with himself for forgetting her face.

Gregory gave Daniel a sad grin. "I think we can arrange that."

-Boston, Massachusetts. The next day; Logan International Airport. 4:30 pm.-

"Flight 3A, bound for Beijing is now boarding through gate 17." The intercom blared out.

Daniel turned and began to push through a crowd heading for gate 17. He checked his bags and only took a few books he knew he'd be interested in.

He looked through his bags one more time and checked the note his father left him. It read, "When you arrive there will be an escort from the Shen Corporation who take you to see your mother. Forgive me for not coming with you. Please don't think less of me for not being able to face your mother when she's in this state. You have several days to be with your mother before it happens. The Corporation will be taking care of your lodgings. Love, Dad."

Daniel didn't like the idea of someone from the corporation that was incompetent enough to let his mother be injured during a routine test as his escort, but at the same time he knew that he'd never be able to navigate through Beijing without at least being able to speak Chinese. Daniel put the note back in his backpack, put on his headphones and tried to relax. He hadn't been able to sleep well the past two days so he wanted to be able to relax. Daniel figured that a 23 hour flight was the best time to catch up with his sleeping.

Unfortunately for Daniel his trip was riddled with on and off turbulence starting about halfway though so sleeping was impossible.

After 23 long hours the plane began its descent and Daniel was allowed to disembark. As Daniel got off the plane and entered the Beijing International Airport, he began to scan the crowd of people waiting near the exit gates. At first he didn't see anyone awaiting him until a sly voice called out to him.

"Daniel Balch? Why hello there." Daniel turned and saw a Chinese man dressed in a very slick black suit. His hair was jet black and quite long; he was short with an athletic build and walked as if he was trying to be as subtle as possible. The only way he stuck out was a small eye-shaped Jade pin affixed to the right lapel of his suit.

"Yeah, that's me." Daniel reached out to shake his hand but his grinning escort bowed deeply, Daniel felt embarrassed to have a complete stranger bowing to him so he bowed back. "You know my name, how about you? What's your name?" He asked as they walked out to the lobby to retrieve Daniel's checked luggage.

"My name is Jian Shan, you may simply call me Jian, I am a human resources executive with the Shen Corporation."

"Cool, that's a nice name- Hey that's mine!" He said as he finally spotted his baggage on the conveyer belt. Daniel moved to grab them off the belt but Jian had already moved around him and grabbed the luggage. They began to walk out to the parking lot. "I can carry that you know." Daniel didn't want to be treated like some kid, but Jian turned to him.

"I've been ordered to assist and protect you in any way; your flight must have been long. You shouldn't be burdened by these at the moment."

Daniel appreciated the sentiment but still he felt like he was missing something. "Protect me? Why would I need protection?"

Jian looked a bit uneasy and dropped his grin. "Well you see there have been riots recently; a group of individuals who would like China to practice a more conservative form of Communism have stepped up and begun to organize demonstrations which inevitably lead to rioting. This group has expressed interest in demonstrating in Beijing today."

Daniel was suddenly very happy to have an escort.

"How long will the drive be to the hospital?" Daniel questioned as Jian dumped his luggage into the car.

"I will be taking you to our research headquarters where your mother is being cared for. If we don't hit any traffic it should take us around a half hour to get there."

The ride back was uneventful until they hit a bit of traffic, Daniel's curiosity was piqued by the sound of someone shouting in Chinese. Daniel looked out the window and saw a man with a megaphone that looked like he was trying to stir up a crowd of people around him."I assume that would be the demonstration? They don't look all that popular." Daniel commented.

"Yeah that's them; I wouldn't underestimate them if I were you. I bet they'll have a couple hundred people listening in a few hours. Many of our politicians have begun to sympathize with them, some individuals in our government believe that they have become too powerful too fast. Something may be done." Jian warned.

Daniel's voice was thick with sarcasm. "Something? That makes things perfectly clear."

Finally they pulled out of the city and drove through the country for a few miles; the stuffy heat was starting to get to Daniel. "Are you lost? Can you turn on the air conditioner? It's hot in here." Jian responded by turning on the air conditioner but didn't comment on whether he was lost or not.

Jian pulled the car over to what looked like a medium size concrete building with what looked like police tape around the door. "So I'm guessing that corporations don't have as much money as they used to." Daniel commented smugly.

Jian didn't respond but pulled out a small remote control looking device from his jacket pocket. He pointed the remote at the building and tapped it a few time.

Daniel had no idea what was going on. "Uh Jian, that looks like a truck stop." Daniel was cut off by the sight of the side of the building shaking then slowly sliding into the ground. Daniel was incredulous. "What the… you can't be serious." Jian moved the car slowly into the faux-truck stop and got out of the car. Once the car was fully inside Jian got out and pressed his hand against a near invisible indention in the wall.

"Come out here, you'll want to see this." Jian called to Daniel.

"See what?- AH!" The side of the building began to slide back up and for a short moment everything was dark. Then slowly Daniel felt movement as the floor began to descend. A light above them turned on and Daniel slowly got out of the car.

"Come on!" Jian encouraged Daniel while pointing at what appeared to be a concrete wall.

Daniel approached cautiously, "I don't see anyth-. Wow…!"

As the giant elevator descended the sides of the walls that were once concrete merged into a thick see through material. Daniel looked out where Jian was pointing and spied what appeared to be a massive cavern. In the distance Daniel could just barely make out a monolithic building; lights were on everywhere and shone out through the darkness of the cavern. The building was surrounded by a magnificent lake that reflected the light of the building out to the whole cavern.

Daniel couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Holy fuck." He said slowly.

"I will take that as a compliment." Jian said happily. "Welcome to the Shen Corporation's Research and Development head office, designated Nerv-Beijing."

You could practically hear Daniel's jaw drop. "H-how is this possible?" Daniel stuttered.

Jian shrugged. "I am only a simple executive; this whole cavern is the product of our lead scientist, Dr. Gao. If you're interested I suggest you ask him."

Daniel didn't even respond, he was still drinking in the sight of the cavern.

"We should probably get back in the car; we'll be hitting the bottom soon." Jian suggested.

"Yeah, for sure." Daniel responded airily as he got back into the car.

The elevator continued below the cavern and finally the wall in front of the car slid away to reveal a small highway. "I thought we'd be driving out through the cavern?" Daniel asked.

Jian answered while concentrating on his driving. "That was the original plan for this place; however, the CO² scrubbers we use down here aren't strong enough to clean enough air for the entire cavern."

Daniel stared at him blankly. "What?"

Jian tried again. "We use machines that make the air down here breathable; we don't have enough of them to make the entire cavern safe, just the main building."

That was simple enough for Daniel to understand. "Oh, okay I get it."

It felt strange that just a few days ago Daniel was worried about his height. After seeing all of this he did feel a bit smaller in the grand scheme of things.

The car eventually pulled into a large parking lot which was mostly empty except for three other cars. As they got out of the car Jian continued the conversation. "This lot is usually filled, but most of the staff are on vacation at the moment. Only Dr. Gao and several of his research staff have stayed behind."

Jian led Daniel to a large elevator at the end of the lot, as they entered Daniel remembered his luggage. "Wait! My luggage, we left it behind."

Jian seemed unfazed. "Don't worry about that, I'll get it for you later." He offered.

Daniel wanted to do something, he felt like Jian was babysitting him, but he did want to see his mother as soon as possible so he didn't press the issue.

When they reached the top the elevator opened into a brightly lit hallway. Daniel felt that if he hadn't already known that this building was underground he would have assumed that it would have been a normal office building. "So are all the labs?" Daniel asked.

"Most of them are on the top floors; all floors below the fifth are dedicated to housing for our staff, and…" Jian said as he led Daniel to a door labeled 101. "This one will be yours for your stay in China." Jian said as he passed Daniel a small key card.

Daniel figured he'd be staying in a hotel; he didn't really want to be cooped up in a place devoid of any sunlight, no matter how beautiful the view was. But still he felt that he should at least see what Jian was offering him, so swiped the key card through.

"Feel free to use the computer if you want, if you want food you'll have to go to the cafeteria on the fourth floor, we usually have a resident chef but he's on vacation so you'll have to make do with our microwavable stock." Jian briefed him.

Daniel peered inside the room; it did appear to be quite comfortable. It was furnished with most of the essentials including a shower and a small couch. It also had some comforts including a television and a computer. The room was completed with a window that shone out to a view of the lake. "Nice! Ya know I appreciate all of this. Maybe you guys aren't as incompetent as I originally thought."

Jian laughed but reprimanded him. "You better not make any of those jokes around Dr. Gao, he's really serious about this place, it's his home. Would you like to see your mother now? I can take you to her if you want."

"Yeah, that would be excellent." Daniel said appreciatively.

"Alright, please follow me." He led Daniel to the end of the hallway and up a flight of stairs to the second level. "The second level is our infirmary, contrary to what you're thinking we don't usually have many injuries, especially none of this level." He led Daniel halfway down the hallway and to a closed door. "She's in this room. I'll give you some time to yourself, just don't go wandering off. I'll be back in 20 or so."

Daniel attempted to speak with some confidence but failed utterly. "Y-yeah, alright. Thanks Jian." He said quietly. He knew his mother's body lay beyond this door and as much as Daniel did not want to admit it, he was scared.

Daniel pushed the door open, and approached the hospital bed slowly; a constant beeping was issuing from the life support machines that were hooked up to her. It was nothing like Daniel thought it would be, she looked like she was just sleeping, she was breathing deeply and her heart was beating. Daniel began to soak up all the aspects of how she looked. "I see you've been dying your hair." He chuckled bitterly at the sight of several graying hairs. He drew up a chair and set it close to her bedside. Daniel wanted one last talk with his mother.

After a moment of observing her his fear had washed away, replaced by a growing anxiety. Daniel looked closely at her face and found her very different from the woman he spent so much time with in his childhood.

"I wanted to see you one last time. So I can remember you, I wish I could say that I remember your face, but that would be a lie. You must have changed and experienced so much since I took that picture two years ago. Why couldn't you have come back sooner?"

Daniel felt another emotion rise up within him; rage welled up and filled his being. He wished he could be sad but found himself faulting his mother for not being there for the last two years.

"Seeing you lying here, I should want to cry, but I can't even recognize you. Seeing you is like looking at a stranger. You have no idea how much that pisses me off." The lack of sleep had begun to affect Daniel's personality, he felt agitated and unreasonably angry at the fragile form of his mother. He grinded his teeth momentarily then stood up. "Why did I even come here? I shouldn't have to deal with this." He commented to himself. "Fuck this; I need to get some sleep." He stormed back to his room incensed.

Soon after he entered his room he heard a knock at his door. As he got up to open the door it slid open before him. Standing on the other side was an elderly Chinese man leaning on a cane who was wearing a lab coat. "You are Daniel Balch I presume?" He asked kindly.

"Yeah that's me, and you are?" Daniel snapped back.

"My name is Doctor Emmanuel Gao, I am the lead scientist here, I created this place."

Daniel turned his thoughts from his mother to the elderly doctor. "Yes, it's very impressive down here." Daniel answered while trying to push the anger he was feeling for his mother out of his mind.

"I just wanted to come and see you to personally offer my condolences for what happened. Your mother was perhaps my most trusted colleague."

Daniel didn't really care for what the doctor was saying so he cut him off. "It's ok. Really." He stood to shake the Doctor's hand but stumbled.

"My dear boys are you feeling alright? Seeing your mother like that must have been terrible." The Doctor did seem legitimately concerned.

Daniel figured he should clear up the Doctor's confusion. "No, it's not that. I haven't been able to sleep lately and it's starting to wear on me."

The Doctor looked like he understood perfectly. "How long exactly have you been unable to sleep?" He questioned.

Daniel tried to remember, the last time he honestly remembered sleeping was the day after he heard the news of his mother's condition. "It's been two days, I don't feel tired but I know that I need sleep." He said almost to confirm to himself that he really had been without sleep for that long.

"You need to get some rest, please come with me." Doctor Gao steered him out of the room.

"Where are we going?" Daniel asked.

"Allow me to make you something that will calm your nerves." The doctor requested calmly. Daniel had no idea what the Doctor was going on about but he figured it was worth a shot.

_Anything to get some sleep._ He thought.

He led Daniel to a room marked 105. Inside were stores of herbs and what looked like a small recreation room. Once inside the doctor began to rummage through the herb stores.

"Isn't herbology a bit primitive for this place?"

The Doctor turned and began to comment as he started to mix several herbs. "My first science experiments were conducted with herbs. Even when I was a child I was always interested in mixtures, so I took it upon myself to learn as much as possible of herbs and their uses. I saw movies with mad scientists making elixirs and concoctions and I wanted to be just like them." He laughed.

Daniel kept the conversation going. "So now you're living your childhood dream. That must be exciting."

"Yes, I always wanted to conduct research. That's why I built this place and invited some of the sharpest minds in the world to work with me." The doctor explained as he turned to a lab desk with a strainer resting in hot water. He added the mixture and allowed it to dissipate into the hot water. "Here." He offered a glass with the mixture in it. "It will help you sleep."

Daniel didn't really like how the tea smelled but he grit is teeth and took a small sip. Surprisingly it tasted like a slightly bitter green tea. "Hey that's not too bad. Cheers." He smiled and gave a cheer to the doctor.

"Thank you, thank you." the doctor said with a bow. "I suggest you go finish that drink while it's hot and get some rest."

Daniel had never heard a better suggestion; he sipped his drink as he made his way back to his room. He finished the drink, changed into his pajamas, and turned off the lights in his room. "What a long, strange trip it's been." He thought to himself before he tucked in.

Within 10 minutes he was asleep.

-Seventeen hours later. The sixth of February. 5:33 pm-

Daniel awoke to the sound of someone knocking on his door; he flipped the lights on and called out. "You can come in." The door slid open and Jian stepped inside. "I see you are enjoying a small nap." He laughed.

Daniel found Jian a hundred times funnier now that he was properly rested. "Yeah, definitely, Doctor Gao made me some tea that really knocked me out."

Jian smiled knowingly "He told me of your encounter during breakfast, you made a good impression on him."

"But that isn't why I'm here right now." Jian's face lost it's near permanent grin and the atmosphere of the room changed immediately. "Doctor Gao has requested that you make the decision regarding your mother."

Daniel was caught off guard but recovered quickly. "According to your best doctors the damage to her brain is irreversible. Is this correct?" Ji nodded. "What are the chances of her regaining consciousness?"

Ji looked grave and muttered. "Zero percent, the damage is too severe."

Daniel closed his eyes for a moment and ran his hand through his hair. Most of his anger had abated over his nap, but still he was annoyed that he would never have the chance to speak with his mother. "Go ahead and do it." He said simply. Daniel expected to feel guilty when he uttered those words but it never happened.

Jian nodded and turned to leave the room.

"Wait. Ji! I want you to show me around the complex!" Daniel called after him.

Ji broke into a smile again. "Maybe you should change out of your pajamas first."

Daniel hadn't even realized that he was standing in the middle of one of the foremost Biological Metaphysics complex in his pajamas. His face flushed red and he jumped back into his room.

"I still have some official work to do, but I should be done within the hour. I can give you a tour of our facility at that point." Ji shouted back to him.

"That would be awesome!"

-45 Minutes later-

Daniel had just finished a quick shower and was pulling his clothes back on when he heard a knock at the door.

"Coming!" He answered as he tied his shoes.

He walked to the door and slid it open, standing on the other side was Ji and Doctor Gao.

"Ji told me that you asked for a tour. Please allow me to be your official tour guide." Doctor Gao said energetically. "I can offer you some insight on the inner workings of the experiments that are conducted here." He said informatively.

"We should begin our tour with the seventh floor." Doctor Gao said as he led both Ji and Daniel to an elevator. The trio stepped inside and Doctor Gao continued to speak as the elevator ascended. "Most of the applied technology we have on this floor is operational and is in the process of being tested." The elevator door opened at the seventh floor and Doctor Gao led them to a door marked 705. "This should be pretty impressive." He remarked as he pushed the door open and entered.

Daniel was curious. "What experiments are done in here?"

"In simple terms we have been working on a teleportation system."

"Really! Teleportation! Does it work?" Daniel asked excitedly.

"It works, but only with small objects at the moment, it takes massive amounts of power and the requirements scale upwards enormously depending on the mass of the object we wish to move."

Daniel didn't really understand all that but he was eager to see it in action. "Can you teleport something? It'd really be amazing to see."

Doctor Gao gave him a smile. "Alright come over here." He beckoned Daniel foreword to a large lab table with a small device on it.

The device almost looked alien in nature but had a small space where you could set something. Several ping pong balls were placed next to it.

"Alright watch this." Gao said as he grabbed a ping pong ball off the table and placed it on the device. "If this works, the ping pong ball will be teleported into the lab next to us; if it doesn't work… it could possibly irradiate the immediate area." He finished with as much danger in his voice he could muster.

"What?!" Daniel sputtered.

But Ji was laughing. "You got him Doctor." He said through laughs.

Still smiling Doctor Gao reached forward and flipped a switch on the side of the device, Daniel watched intently. He didn't want to miss any of this. Several seconds passed as the device activated. There was a loud popping sound and the ping pong ball disappeared.

"Now we shall see if it worked. Come. Follow me." Jian opened the door for them as they left and entered the lab beside the one they were in.

As soon as they entered all three of them caught the scent of burning plastic. Indeed a second device was in this room but the transport area was full of burning plastic.

"Wow that's effective." Daniel said sarcastically.

"Yes, well that can happen sometimes, regardless we did succeed in transporting the ping pong ball, just in a slightly different state. We still haven't worked out all the kinks in the wave to particle reintegration." He finished with a smile.

They all stared at the remains of the ping pong ball for several seconds. Then Daniel's stomach growled. "Could we go get some lunch? The last hot meal I had was on the plane."

"Sure, when we're done I'll show you something that will absolutely impress you." Doctor Gao said confidently.

Daniel was beginning to doubt the veracity of this place being the foremost technological research and development lab. He held in his sarcasm and followed the Doctor and his Lieutenant down to the lunch area. The lunch area was completely devoid of people but had many tables; Daniel figured that if you took all available seats the room would comfortably fit a hundred or so people. "So the chef is on vacation too?" He asked, wanting to get food as fast as possible.

"Unfortunately yes. Let me show you to our microwavable stores." Jian said as he led Daniel back behind the empty food line. "It's in this fridge over here." He beckoned Daniel over. "Do you have any requests? We have a pretty big variety."

"Pizza would be nice."

"Alright, but we only have cheese at the moment." He said as he withdrew a personal size frozen pizza from the fridge. "And I'll have… some pasta, yeah that sounds good." He took another small package from the fridge. "You can go back to the table if you want; I'll bring your food out to you. If you'd like I can also grab your baggage from the car after we finish this tour."

Daniel sighed inwardly. "Please don't be so nice Ji; I'll grab my own baggage later. You don't need to bother with that."

"Nonsense, this complex is very much my home and you are my honored guest." He replied.

"I-I see. Well I'll leave you to it then." Daniel said bashfully as he turned and headed out of the kitchen area.

Daniel had nearly forgotten what a good meal tasted like after only having airplane food for the past day. "That's really good!" He said as he bit into the pizza.

"We have even better stuff when the chef is in." Ji commented as he ate his pasta.

"Well we have to give breaks, everyone needs some time off. We give everyone here one week's worth of topside leave per year. It's usually taken at the same time for everyone, we only leave a skeleton staff in place to deal with the essentials and sometimes we have scientists who are performing research on their own time."

"So you two are the skeleton staff for this year?" He looked at both of them.

"Yeah, I'm technically the head of security here and the Doctor is the Head of Research and Development." Ji answered.

"Must be boring for you two. I know I'd be bored to death if I was cooped up in here." Daniel said as he tried to imagine what he'd do to entertain himself.

"Well I usually have research to do; it's not that bad." Gao said defensively. "The most interesting experiments are usually done during this time. We like to ensure that if something goes wrong and environmental damage is rendered it will only affect a small number of people."

Daniel hadn't really considered that. "Is there research being done now?" He asked as he downed the last of his pizza.

"We do have one team working on a very top secret government contract, but they're at the eastern section of this building." Gao revealed. "Now that you're done with lunch, we will continue the tour in our wireless technologies lab located on the ninth floor."

Daniel nodded and followed them out to the elevator.

"So, are you guys associated with the Chinese government? You said back there that you were working on a contract for them."

"We are not a part of the Chinese government per se, but in exchange for using this land and free in-out air travel we allocate 20% of our budget to research requested by the Chinese government. It is important that we stay on their good side, not many countries would allow us to conduct the research we do here." The Doctor answered.

Soon enough the elevator hit the ninth floor and Daniel stepped outside. "So you said this was the wireless technologies lab? And you guarantee that there is something that will absolutely impress me?" Daniel thought it seemed unlikely.

"Yes indeed, please follow me." He led them to a room labeled 908. "Ji you go in the other room and start up the transmission device."

"Yes Doctor." He replied with a short bow and entered the room labeled 909.

Doctor Gao opened the door and led Daniel inside. This room looked very different from the others, Daniel couldn't explain it but the walls looked different somehow.

Doctor Gao caught his gaze and nodded at him. "Yes the walls are different. In fact all the walls on this floor are made to allow wireless waves to pass through them. The other floors are made to block wireless signals; this is mainly a precaution to prevent errant wireless waves from interfering with delicate experiments." He walked over to a small pedestal and grabbed a small device off of it. "This is what we're here for, one of our latest inventions, the Advanced Mental Interface and Functional Feedback headset."

The device he held was a small half circle of thin metal band with small, stylized white and black pod like structures on each end. Daniel examined it a bit closer and found that the band portion of the device had grooves etched through it. "So what does it do?"

Doctor Gao smiled. "This is the next generation in brain scanning technology, it is basically a portable MRI that can read and transmit the electrical waves of the brain in real time with very high accuracy. It also has one other special function."

Daniel's curiosity was piqued. "And what would that be? By the way, I'm already impressed."

"This device can be used to receive information in such a way that it becomes possible for the wearer to basically receive input from a device. Of course the computer would have to be equipped with special software designed to interpret brain waves but we have conducted several trials and have succeeded in both sending and receiving data." He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "Now Daniel I have one question for you."

"And what would that be?" Daniel had no idea what was coming.

"How would you like to try it on?"

Daniel's reaction was immediate. "What? Is it safe?"

"Very safe, this device has been tested by quite a few subjects and is fully functional." He encouraged.

Daniel was sold on the idea. "Alright, why not, I'll try it out."

"Very good." He said as he handed the headset over. "The wire part passes under your hair and the pod structures are placed at the side of your head, near your temples."

"Like this? I don't think its working." Daniel frowned, but a second later two tiny green lights turned on at each side of the headset. "Does that mean it's on?"

"Yes." He took a radio out of his pocket. "Ji? Are you there? You may start up the transmission program."

Ji's voice crackled through. "Yes I'm here Doctor, beginning start up."

-Ji's End. Eastern Section of Nerv-Beijing-

"Charles, start it up." Ji commanded a researcher.

"Alright! Remote synchronization test beginning. Connecting…we have a complete Synch! Synchronization rate is low, but start up is successful! Artificial S2 organ is functioning normally. Thought pattern set to English. Data collection commenced." A chubby technician with short wavy blond hair and a neck beard said excitedly. His appearance was casual for the work he was conducting; he wore a simple pair of blue jeans with a dark shirt that was obscured by a lab coat with 0-01 printed on the right arm. "I knew this algorithm would work, I wrote it after all." He finished with a slight British accent.

"We both wrote it!" A female technician said harshly. She had light blonde hair done up in a tight bun, her face was spattered with freckles and she spoke with a heavy German accent. Her attire was considerably more professional that Charles and consisted of a medium length grey skirt with a matching shirt, she also was wearing a lab coat with the 0-01 logo emblazoned on the right arm. She tapped through her tablet PC. "So many synchronization errors! Your code is sloppy Charles!"

"Charles! Lena! Stay on task!" Ji ordered.

"Yes Sir!" They both called back.

"This is stupid, why do I have to be here?" Drawled another researcher. He had medium length light brown hair and bags under his eyes. His uniform was like the others with the exception of a medical cross on the right arm of his lab coat. "I need to catch up on my sleep." He took off his glasses for a moment to rub his eyes.

"Sekito, you're here to monitor the subject's brain waves. If you want to conduct research here we expect you to cooperate." Ji told him forcefully.

"Tch, yeah whatever." Sekito said in the same slow drawl. "Headset is in parasympathetic mode, brain readings are normal."

Slowly Evangelion 0-01 finished its start up. It's seven eyes lit up with a dark blue glow as if to signify that it was ready.

"Look at the eyes! That's the first time I've seen them glow like that. Why does it have seven eyes? Do you know Sekito?" Charles asked.

Sekito shot him a cold look. "Hm? Why would I know? You should ask Doctor Gao, he designed it."

All three of them walked to the observation deck beyond which the newly activated 0-01 was held.

The Evangelion's completed Zeruel based armor was patched together with alloy stitching that gave it the appearance of a ragdoll. It's head crowned with three prongs, two above the eyes and one at the back of the head. Unlike normal Evangelions it's teeth were fully visible but the sides of its mouth were stitched up, as if to stop the mouth from opening. It was completely black with stylized white lines that ran the length of its stitches. The completed construct resembled a nightmarish patchwork doll.

Soon all three began to comment on its appearance. "It's so tall. I can't believe it's as large as this building." Charles commented.

"The armor plating looks like skin. It kind of grosses me out. What's it made out of?" Lena asked.

"Well it's a biosynthetic material that was developed here; it's apparently a woven fiber that's amazingly strong." Sekito answered to the general amazement of the other two.

"How did you know that? Did you hear Doctor Gao talking about it?" Charles guessed.

"Tch." Was the entirety of Sekito's answer.

Ji thought it best to stop the commotion. "Ladies and gentlemen, please act like scientists. Return to your seats." The three researchers calmed down and returned to their work stations.

"We will now begin the transmission portion of this test." Ji called into the radio.

A walkway complete with handrails extended in front of Unit 0-01's face and a slightly scared looking researcher stepped out on it with a tape player and a large poster that was rolled up in his hands. He nervously made his way to the front of the Evangelion's face, set down the tape player and popped in a cassette.

-Daniel's end.-

"The transmission should be starting any time now, just relax." Gao reassured him.

At first Daniel felt nothing. "I don't think this is working." He said disappointedly. Then he felt a very small feeling, it was as though he had an itch he couldn't scratch. It felt like his mind was being tugged on, he began to hear a small melody, as if from nowhere. "Is that…" Daniel knew the melody but was unsure, it sounded as if it was coming from a broken radio. He focused on the melody and very slowly the sound began to clear. "Ode to Joy?"

Doctor Gao was overjoyed. "First test successful. Begin the second portion of the test." He called into the radio.

Slowly the sound of Ode to Joy faded away. Daniel waited a moment until a familiar feeling hit him. A tugging of his mind, an itch he couldn't scratch. But nothing followed. "I can't hear anything. Wait…" Daniel felt an image rise in his mind, an image that had nothing to do with his situation in this room. "It's unclear… is that the Mona Lisa?"

"Correct. That was an image transmitted by Ji from next door." He took the radio from his pocket. "Both audio and image data transfers were successful, go ahead and cut the connection."

"Yes sir, commencing desynchronization." Ji called through the radio.

"You see, aren't you impressed?"

Daniel took off the headset and looked down at it. "This headset is perhaps the most impressive thing I've seen here today. Maybe the cavern is a close second though." He laughed.

"Maybe one day I can show you something that will even top this headset. But for today I will be ending the tour. Can you find your way back to your room by yourself?"

Daniel wanted to see more but he could understand the scientist was a busy man so he relented. "Yeah, for sure." He said as he handed over the headset.

-Ten minutes later, 0-01 Data Lab-

Doctor Gao entered the lab to cheers from his team. He motioned for silence. "So how was it? What was the highest synch level achieved?"

Charles stepped forward. "The highest synch level recorded was 12, but it peaked to 15 during Ode to Joy. I expected it to be higher." He said as if disappointed. "I assumed the Kaworu thought algorithm was fully integrated with the headset, even with the Magi helping out I'm having some problems with it."

"Tch, at least it finally started up. I was starting to wonder if it was functional at all." Sekito said in his usual drawl. "Anyways, brain waves and neural chemistry of the test subject were within normal ranges for the entire experiment. Can I go get some rest now?"

"Yes, you may leave. Thank you for overseeing the medical aspect of this startup test." Said Doctor Gao as he bowed Sekito out.

"Yeah no problem." He said while trudging back to his room.

Doctor Gao turned back to Lena and Charles. "What about the Absolute Territory Subjugation module?"

Lena tapped her tablet PC several times and began to look through the start-up log. "There were many errors and overall the program is shoddy." Lena shot a venomous glance at Charles. "But it was tentatively successful; Evangelion 0-01 manifested a very weak AT field. A pilot should be able to forcefully synchronize with it."

"Well that's not so bad." Charles said defensively. "But we will need to write a few patches for the AT subjugator." He conceded. "I'll go over it again with the Magi and see if I can streamline it."

Lena took this opportunity to change the subject. "So we finally have a pilot?"

"We just may have." Doctor Gao answered. "He knows nothing of our work here. I plan to brief him personally when we complete the AT subjugator."

"Well? Is it a guy or a girl! I have money riding on this." Charles completely broke the tense atmosphere.

Doctor Gao face palmed. "Get to work on the subjugator."

Chapter end.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them at

.me/Kaisers


	6. The First Mover

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion.

-February 6th, 2016. A bar somewhere in Shanghai, 1:30 pm-

The atmosphere inside the bar was celebratory; the members of the self proclaimed Traditional-Maoist Communist party were reveling in the success of their recent rally. Their leader, Feng Jieshi was a charismatic man who was very fond of alcohol and would use any excuse to throw a party at a local bar. His head was shaved bald; he was slightly overweight but tall. He had an excellent sense of humor and would always ensure that new party members were treated like family.

He would arrange parties for any occasion, but today was slightly different. His political party had successfully placed a member in the National Congress, the party he had arranged was huge. Many of his friends and fellow party members were in attendance, the bar was crammed full of people.

Feng downed the rest of his beer and slammed the glass on the bar table. "Bartender! Another round for me and my brethren!" Feng called out as he swooned. "My comrades! Let me address you!" He said as he climbed atop his chair and stepped onto the bar table. "At long last we have succeeded in claiming a position in the National Congress! Soon we will rise up and influence this great nation; we will destroy the capitalist road our country has begun to follow! The so called People's party cannot ignore us any longer; we will expose the capitalist ideals that corrupt them!"

Cheers greeted his impromptu speech.

Feng grabbed another beer from the table and chugged half of it. He loved the effect he had on his people. "Furthermore!" What he wanted to say was never heard, for at that moment he lost his footing on the bar table and fell backwards.

Laughs echoed through the bar. Several party members approached him and helped him up.

"He's out cold! He never could handle his alcohol!" One of them called out.

Another wave of laughter rippled through the bar as his party members helped him up and carried him to the back of the bar.

-Two hours later, 3:30 pm-

Feng woke to a splitting headache; he pulled himself out of the chair his comrades had set him in. As he regained his footing he felt terribly dizzy and immediately sat back down._ I really should quit drinking so much_. He thought to himself.

The bar was mostly empty contrasting the party several hours ago. Feng slowly trudged though the bar and tried to exit. As soon as the door was open the sunlight burned at his eyes. "Maybe not yet." He said as he took a seat and rested his eyes. His mouth was parched. "Bartender, could I have some water please?"

"There ya go." The bartender said as he passed the glass of water down. "We appreciate your party's patronage Mister Jieshi, but I would recommend that you cut down on your drinking."

Feng laughed. "I was considering it; I just don't seem to have much tolerance for alcohol."

"A drink for me please!" Another customer called from the other end of the bar.

"Please excuse me sir." The bartender excused himself to help the other customer.

Feng gazed into the glass of water and took a sip. For the first time in several years it felt as though his party was making progress. He remembered how unpopular his ideas were when he first started to suggest them. No one would listen to him until he began to make speeches in public, he had gotten arrested a fair number of times but he always enjoyed his work and it was all for this.

_It only gets better from here on out._ He thought to himself as he finished his glass of water.

The bar door opened and a man who looked completely out of place in the seedy bar stepped inside.

Feng looked him over a moment. He was obviously a foreigner, probably American. _Damned Tourists. _He was wearing what seemed to be a very expensive light green pinstriped three-piece. Feng didn't like anything about this man, from his ethnicity to his style of clothes, everything about him was offensive to the traditional communism that was so important to Feng.

The man looked around the bar quickly and noticed Feng eyeing him. He walked over to Feng's table and spoke to him in perfect Chinese. "Is this seat taken?"

Feng was taken aback by the stranger's ability to speak Chinese but still he didn't like him. Feng relented. "Go ahead." He mumbled.

"Thanks. Bartender! A whiskey for me please." The stranger called out as he took a seat across from Feng.

The bartender came over and poured out a shot for the stranger.

The stranger downed the shot quickly and waved the barman off. He gazed at the glass for a moment then spoke. "You're attracting a lot of attention Feng."

Feng was surprised the foreigner knew his name; but knew his actions were garnering attention. Feng figured that the bastards in Beijing had sent this man here. "I will not make excuses for my party; we will reform this corrupt country." He said rebelliously.

The stranger smiled as if he was expecting that answer. "That's exactly the type of person I had you pegged for. Allow me to introduce myself; I am an official with an organization known as Committee. I represent our American branch, we have recently considered expanding into China and we would like your assistance in doing so."

Feng would never consider this. "I would never consider helping a corporation base itself in China." He said vehemently.

The stranger dropped his smile. "I think you misunderstand me, we are not a corporation. We are an organization of politicians and thinkers that has existed since World War II. Make no mistake; we have our eye on you, and we have already helped you more than you know. Tell me, how do you think your candidate was accepted into the National Congress? We have people who can influence decisions everywhere."

Feng figured the stranger was bluffing. But still, he was interested in what he had to say. "Then why are you paying attention to me? I am but a simple servant of my party. What is your purpose in China?" He questioned.

"Getting right to the point eh?" The stranger chuckled. "We know all about your party. We know that you aspire to draw your country away from the spectre of capitalism. But how do you plan on doing so?"

"We will do so legally. Through rousing the public we will gain seats in the legislature and increase our influence to the point where we can defeat measures." Feng said quickly.

"Please forgive me for saying so, but this is a pipe dream. It would be nearly impossible for a third party to obtain that much power." The stranger said harshly. "But perhaps…assistance could be rendered if we could count on you to be sympathetic to our goals." He mused.

"Hmph, and how would you assist me?" Feng was annoyed with the stranger's lack of respect. "You are bluffing." He added sternly.

The stranger lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. "Very soon your phone will ring. Another of your candidates will have won an election. An election that you considered to be impossible, we have arranged for Han to win a seat in Beijing." The stranger said impassively but with supreme confidence.

Feng began to laugh. "Han! Win a seat? That whiskey must have made you drunk. Alright, if Han wins I'll see about your off-" He was cut off by his phone vibrating in his pocket, he felt a cold sweat over his body as he answered the phone. "Hello, this is Feng."

"You won't believe this sir! One of our other candidates won! Han managed to win a seat in Beijing!" Han's subordinate said excitedly.

"This is surely a miracle." Feng said flatly, almost as if he didn't believe it himself.

"Sir are you okay? You sound-"

Feng turned his phone off. "Perhaps I did not take you seriously enough. Let me hear your offer."

The stranger smiled, finished off his cigarette, and began to speak. "This may sound melodramatic, but from this point there is no turning back. I can find someone else if you back out."

Feng had confidence in his decision. "Go on."

The stranger continued. "The true rulers of this country have begun to oppose our organization. This is completely unacceptable; China is far too prosperous to not be under Committee influence. If you accept our offer we will install you as president of the National People's Committee, and as long as you are sensitive to our objectives you will be allowed to retain this position."

Feng couldn't believe what he was hearing; this stranger was speaking casually about hoodwinking a large government and installing a new leader. "How would this be possible? I'm just a small scale party supervisor; the people will not accept me."

"It's not like we haven't done this sort of thing before. Governments exist for our purpose, the current leadership of China ignores our authority, and hence, must be replaced. We have attempted to negotiate but they have forced our hand." The stranger said cryptically. "Several years ago you were a politician with the National People's party. You were popular, but your traditional ideals got you removed from office. This could be your opportunity to change China."

"Then what about me? Am I removed the moment I'm inconvenient?" Feng said defensively.

"Actually the opposite will happen, you will be inducted into Committee and given authority on matters pertaining to China. Your will would be the law of China. Of course this all assumes you respect our goals."

"You said something about the true rulers of this country, do you mean the President? The National Committee?" Feng asked.

The stranger broke out laughing. "The National Committee and the President are mere figureheads. Before I can continue I will assume I have your cooperation." He nodded to Feng.

Feng's curiosity was growing by the moment. "Tell me." He said quickly.

"The former Committee appointed Chinese representative is a man named Liao Huangdi. He was one of our oldest and most respected members. However, we have come to believe that he is planning to take China out of our control. Your first task will be to remove this man from power." The stranger said casually.

Feng had never heard of this man. "And how would I be able to do this? I have no power, just a small group of party members."

"We will provide you with all that you require." The stranger said mysteriously. "Please follow me."

And with that the stranger and Feng left the bar.

-Nerv-Beijing, 10:45 pm. The same day-

Daniel took the elevator to the top floor; Ji had told him if he wanted to use his cell phone he'd only be able to make calls from the roof access floor. Once the elevator hit the top floor he stepped out and took a few flights of stairs to the roof access point. Once at the top he caught his breath and pushed open the door to the roof area.

The first thing Daniel noticed was that the roof area was large but was contained by the same sort of transparent but very strong glass that the giant elevator was contained in. Daniel rushed to the edge to get a better view of the entire cavern. From the roof Daniel could clearly see the entire cavern, the stalactites looked glassy and seemed to reflect the light of the building, it looked as if they were stars and the cavern ceiling was the night sky. Daniel looked down at the lake and vertigo hit him, he pushed himself away from his vantage point.

_Well I'm still afraid of heights. _He thought to himself as he took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed his father.

After several rings his father's voicemail message started. "You've reached the voice mail of Greg Balch. Please leave a message at the sound of the beep. If you need to contact my office please call the Bingham Law Firm, extension 15." *Beep*

Daniel was somewhat relieved that he wouldn't have to talk with his father until he got home. He knew his father would ask about Emma, and Daniel wanted to hold that off for as long as he could. "Hey, it's me; I just got the details on the flight I'll be taking back to Boston. I sorta just wanted to confirm with you when I'll need a pickup. Anyway, try and call me back before tomorrow."

Daniel heard the sound of the roof access door opening behind him. Daniel expected Doctor Gao or Ji but the man who stepped through wasn't what he was expecting. The stranger seemed to be a slightly heavy set man tapping at a tablet pc and muttering to himself. Daniel snapped his cell phone shut and the stranger gave a start and looked up from his pc.

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry; did I interrupt your phone call?" The stranger said with a mild English accent.

"No, I was done." Daniel hadn't seen this guy around, then he remembered that some of the researchers would be returning from their vacations. "Did you just get back from your vacation?" He added.

The stranger gave a hearty laugh. "I wish. No, I've been working in the eastern section. After all the work I've been putting in trying to design this code I need a vacation. My name is Charles Wright; I'm a programmer here." He said as he offered his hand to Daniel.

Daniel thought he seemed likable enough, he shook Charles' hand. "My name is Daniel Balch, I'm, well, a student." He said.

"A student huh? It's pretty rare to see anyone besides researchers here." Charles commented. "I'm probably being too blunt, but why are you here?" He asked.

Daniel really didn't want to say that he came here to see his comatose mother so he settled for a slight lie. "My mother works here. She wanted me to see this place; I have to say it's very impressive here."

"Ah I see." Charles smiled. "I remember the first time I saw this place, I had just graduated from Exeter. You probably don't know but I'm the best programmer in the world." He said as if aiming to impress Daniel.

Daniel really didn't know what to make of Charles. "Oh, I see." He said weakly.

"Well, actually I work with another programmer, she's pretty good. But she's like the devil or something; she always yells at me and calls me sloppy."

Daniel really had no idea what to say to this, so he settled on staying silent.

"I work just as hard as she does! She is kinda cute though, in a librarian sort of way, if she would just let her hair down." Charles continued to rant.

Daniel interrupted him. "So is she as good a programmer as you?"

"Well she's definitely close. But I'm still better! I'm getting close to streamlining this program; it will give birth to an entirely new wireless protocol! It will be so much faster than anything we have now! And when I finish this, I will take the program to Lena and shove it in her face!" Charles raved. "And I will say-"

He was interrupted by the sound of the door behind him opening. A woman with light red hair done up in a bun stepped through. Daniel assumed that this was the "Lena" that Charles was talking about.

"As cute as a librarian… I see." She said coldly.

Charles stepped away from her.

Daniel could definitely sense an aura of evil around her. Daniel figured if he didn't say anything she would destroy Charles, so he introduced himself. "Hi. I'm Daniel, Charles here was just telling me about you." Daniel said while attempting to stifle his laughter.

She looked at Daniel for a moment, and then introduced herself. "As you heard from Charles, my name is Lena. Lena Shulz." She said with her slight German accent. "Graduate from the University of Munich, and much better programmer than this idiot." She gestured at Charles.

"Don't listen to her bro; I told you, she's the devil!" Charles warned Daniel.

She glared at Charles for a moment. "Doctor Gao sent me. Your break is over; we need to get back to work."

Charles sighed. "But programming that is so boring…" His whining was cut off by a cold gaze from Lena. "Alright, alright let's go." He said in a resigned sort of voice. He turned back to Daniel. "Well it was nice meeting you. I'll see you later."

"Yeah, nice talking to you." He nodded to Charles. "Oh and nice to meet you too Lena, good luck with your work."

Lena turned back and gave a smile. "Thanks, maybe we'll see you around tomorrow." She said as she dragged Charles back through the door and down the hall.

Daniel could hear Lena scolding Charles until the roof door closed. He remembered how Charles' face looked when he heard the door opening behind him, it was priceless. Daniel laughed and checked the time. His cell phone read 11:07, Daniel did feel a bit tired; he gave a huge yawn and began to head back down to his room. He pushed open the door to his room and headed straight for the bed. He sank into it and covered himself with a light blanket. _This bed is really comfortable, I'm gonna miss it._ His eyes closed, and sleep was upon him.

-Nerv-Beijing, February 7th, 3:47 am-

Daniel heard the sound of his door being opened. He turned over and curled up tighter under the covers.

Ji stepped into the room and approached Daniel. "Daniel you need to get up. We have a situation." Ji shook Daniel awake.

"Ji? Was goin nnn?" Daniel said sleepily as he yawned.

"Don't worry about that right now, time is of the essence, please come with me." He implored.

Daniel rubbed the sleep from his eyes and caught a good look at Ji; he had never seen him look so serious. Panic began to set in and replace the grogginess that Daniel normally experienced after being woken up. "What kind of situation? Did something bad happen?"

"Come quickly, Doctor Gao will brief you personally." He grabbed Daniel's arm and pulled him out of the room. "Can you run? Please try and keep up. We need to get to the Eastern labs as quick as possible."

Normally Daniel was a terrible runner, but for all he knew some sort of emergency may have occurred, so he followed Ji at a quick pace. Within minutes of running they had reached the entrance to the Eastern labs.

Ji stepped forward and slid his access card, the door opened immediately.

Daniel followed Ji inside; the room seemed to be designed for presentations, with a row of seats facing a presentation space. Doctor Gao was at the head of the room engaged in a conversation with a man with light brown hair. Daniel could hear a light tapping sound; he turned to his right and spotted both Charles and Lena working intently on their tablet pc's. The room had a crazy serious atmosphere; Daniel could feel the tension in the air.

Ji marched Daniel up to Doctor Gao. "Doctor." He bowed.

Doctor Gao dismissed the man he was talking to and faced Ji. "Thank you Ji, please continue with the preparations."

"At once Doctor." He turned quickly and ran from the room.

Doctor Gao then regarded Daniel. "I am truly sorry for waking you at this hour." He bowed, and then continued. "I wish I could have held this off for a while but my hand has been forced. I will be asking for your assistance in my research, but before I do I feel that you should know some facts."

Daniel was incredulous, he liked Doctor Gao but being woken up for a simple conversation was crossing a few lines. "Facts? You woke me up at 4 am to hold a conference? This is retarded, I'm going back to sleep." He turned to leave, but Doctor Gao's hand gripped his shoulder.

"These are things that you should hear. What I tell you will completely change your view of the world, I guarantee it. Personally I believe that you are too young to hear all this, but if you are to assist me I would rather you know full well what you're getting into." He said in a half pleading tone.

Daniel looked into his eyes, Daniel saw anxiety and he wasn't sure but he fancied that the Doctor's eyes carried sadness. "Fine." He said stiffly.

"Thank you, please sit down." The Doctor tapped through his tablet pc.

Daniel took a seat in a comfortable chair as the lecture began.

"Tell me, what do you know of the Theory of Evolution?" The Doctor questioned.

Daniel was taken aback, he wasn't expecting a question. "Uh, well" He tried to think back to his biology classes but he completely blanked out. "Something about survival of the fittest? Sorry, but what does this have to do with anything?"

"To tell the entire story we must start at the beginning. And in our case this means the beginning of life on this world. Evolution began when life was spread to our planet via an object known as a "Seed of Life" that was located in present day Antarctica. This object was home to a being known as "Adam". Adam existed to sew what we would consider alien life, and until roughly 4 billion years ago Adam did just that."

Daniel didn't want to interrupt but he had to ask a question. "Wait wait. Wait. Seed's of Life? Adam? Couldn't you come up with a better name?" Daniel's tone was thick with cynicism.

"Everything I am presenting to you is scientific fact. Whether you believe it or not is up to you, but I would suggest that you listen well." The Doctor said dismissively.

Daniel was caught off guard by the Doctor's harsh tone. "Hmph."

The Doctor continued with his lecture. "Some time after Adam came to our planet another type of Seed of Life found its way to our planet. This Seed landed in present day Japan and was home to another being, we call this being "Lilith". Lilith landing on a planet would predispose evolution of intelligent life. At this point we assume that Adam stepped down and allowed Lilith to guide our planet. Lilith's evolution took its course and intelligent life was born, humans are that intelligent life. Until a certain event that occurred late in the year 2000 we knew nothing about these beings. The event I am speaking of was Second Impact."

"That's when that meteor hit the South Pole, Right?" Daniel interjected, he had heard all about Second Impact in school.

Doctor Gao smiled and continued with the lesson. "Yes, that was the story that was disseminated to the public. What really occurred there began a long chain of events that culminated in an organization known as Nerv-Tokyo led by one Gendo Ikari attempting to use the bodies of Lilith and Adam to artificially advance the evolution of humanity."

The Doctor pressed on. "On that day, in the year 2000, a group of scientists who called themselves the Katsuragi Expedition discovered the body of Adam in Antarctica. They attempted to experiment with Adam and ended up causing Adam to detonate and destroy all life in the surrounding area. This explosion was the cause of the tidal waves and mass destruction associated with Second Impact."

"Nerv-Tokyo? So this facility is connected with them?" Daniel asked.

"That would be an emphatic no. We are only connected loosely through our benefactors. Though I did meet Gendo once; he was a subpar scientist with far too much vision." Doctor Gao said vehemently. "I'm sure you'll feel the same when this lecture is finished."

Daniel wanted to hear more about Gendo and specifically why Doctor Gao seemed to hate him so much. "You said "was". Is he dead?"

"Yes, Gendo is dead. I'll tell you how it happened later. For now we're on borrowed time, and I'd like to be able to tell you all that I can." The Doctor said quickly.

Daniel was also curious as to why the Doctor referred to his time as borrowed but let him continue.

Doctor Gao continued, his voice thick with distain. "From 2000 to 2014, Gendo made contact with an organization known as Committee. They collaborated together and the Human Instrumentality project was formed. The purpose of the plan was to artificially advance human evolution by creating a worldwide Anti-A.T Field. Doing so would leave all humans unable to maintain physical forms and advance our being to what Committee believed to be the next level. They believed they could do this by uniting Adam and Lilith; two months ago they succeeded."

Daniel tried to wrap his mind around what the Doctor was telling him. He didn't see what any of this had to do with him, or why the Doctor was telling him. "So let me get this straight. You knew that they had Adam, and you didn't do anything to stop them?"

Doctor Gao looked uneasy. "I'm not proud that I couldn't do anything to stop him. I attempted to organize some resistance through the organization that funds our work here but my success was limited. At any rate, I failed, a worldwide Anti-A.T field was generated and for several days humans were unable to retain physical form. Do you remember anything specific from New Years to the Third of January?" He asked.

Daniel wracked his memory; he had some very vague memories and images but nothing concrete. Daniel shook his head. "I don't remember anything; we were told that a terrorist organization conducted a large scale chemical attack on the United States." The truth staggered Daniel. "What you're telling me is that during that time I was unable to retain my physical form because of something called an Anti-A.T field?"

Doctor Gao nodded gravely. "An A.T field is something that every living being generates, it is a very complex concept but it keeps our physical form from breaking down. An anti-A.T field would break this down and destroy our self image causing our physical selves to also be destroyed."

Daniel rejected this. "There's no way this is all true, I can't accept this. What does all this have to do with me?"

Doctor Gao sighed. "You need to accept it. This is the truth. I understand that this seems very obscure but it will all make sense soon."

Daniel was at his limit, he was tired of Doctor Gao's stories. "No! I don't care to know what you're talking about! I don't care about the truth! This is all bullshit!" Daniel raged at the Doctor.

Daniel's outburst had disrupted the tension in the room. Both Charles and Lena had stopped working to see what was happening.

"You guys are crazy, I'll be leav-" Daniel was interrupted by the feeling of the cavern shaking around him. "What!? An earthquake?"

"They must have found us already. Charles! Lena! Head for evacuation point C, Ji will be waiting for you. Keep working when you get there, if we don't finish the subjugator it's all over." The Doctor ordered the researchers.

The two researchers heeded his orders and fled from the room.

The cavern shook again. Doctor Gao looked towards the ceiling then turned to Daniel. "That is the sound of Committee knocking on our door." As if to answer him the cavern quaked again. "The creature that is making that racket will be upon us soon, I hoped the subjugator would be ready. If it was we could at least fight back."

"W-what is that?" The fear was palpable in Daniel's voice.

"A construct. More specifically, a construct derived from Adam." The Doctor said mysteriously. "Come with me, we need to evacuate as well." He walked from the room.

Daniel followed him quickly. They both reached the main elevator soon after.

Doctor Gao hit the call button. "Daniel. See what we face." He pointed out a nearby window.

Daniel looked out; the familiar sight of the cavern greeted him. Another massive quake hit the cavern and several pieces of the cavern ceiling fell into the lake. Daniel looked up to the top of the cavern and saw that there was a massive hole with the night sky visible through it. Very suddenly a huge white hand pushed its way into the hole and widened it violently. A large whale like face devoid of eyes pushed its way through the hole; the massive creature struggled for a moment then managed to get through the opening. "This can't be." Daniel's legs shook and he fell to his knees as the creature descended into the cavern.

The elevator let out a ding and the doors opened.

"Come on, let's go." Doctor Gao helped Daniel to his feet and into the elevator. Once inside he swiped his keycard. "Point C please." Doctor Gao said calmly.

The elevator seemed to acknowledge this, the door closed and it began to descend.

Daniel was visibly terrified; in contrast, Doctor Gao seemed quite calm. "Those are called Evangelion; they are AI controlled derivatives of Adam. The team over at Nerv-Matsushiro created those ones. Committee uses them to enforce their rule; don't you see how despicable they are? They deceive the world and rule through fear; this is the dogma of Committee."

The sounds of the cavern being hit slowly faded as the elevator continued to descend. Finally the elevator hit point C and the doors opened.

Ji was waiting as the elevator opened. "I was about to come back for you." He said anxiously. "The evacuation point is ready Doctor." He bowed to Gao, then spotted Daniel leaning against the back of the elevator. "Daniel are you okay? Would you like me to help you to the point?"

"No, I'll be fine." Daniel stepped out of the elevator, still looking a bit shaken.

"Please follow me, we'll be evacuating to our Gamma point." Ji motioned for them to follow.

They walked in silence until they reached a large staging area; a massive bullet train dominated the area.

"This is one of the fastest trains in the world. It travels at an astounding 400 km/hour. We'll be heading to the Gamma point just off the coast of Tianjin Gang." Ji explained as they boarded.

Once onboard Daniel saw that Lena and Charles were waiting, along with the guy who was talking with Gao earlier.

"Well well, I didn't think you were coming." He greeted Doctor Gao then noticed Daniel. "Oh. Is this the subject? He isn't that impressive, he's still wearing pajamas." He said in a drawl.

Daniel didn't like the guy, he wanted to punch him but he restrained himself and took a seat next to Ji as the train began to move.

"Don't be mean Sekito!" Lena said reproachfully. "Doctor, we did it! We finished programming the Subjugator! We just need to run the interface by the Magi." She said cheerfully.

"That's excellent; my only regret is that we couldn't save the Beijing labs. I hope that monstrosity up there enjoys the self destruct mechanism." Doctor Gao said sounding satisfied. "Once we're in range please patch the new data." The Doctor turned his attention to Daniel. "We'll be reaching the Gamma site in about 25 minutes. Mainland China is no longer safe for us; Committee has extended their reach into China. Nerv-Beijing will resist this unlawful power grab and work to free China from Committee influence."

Daniel was still unclear as to how the situation in China changed so radically. "So what happened? I thought Nerv-Beijing was supported by China?"

"Our intelligence points to Committee interference; they managed to orchestrate a coup and installed a leader who is unsympathetic towards our goals." Ji informed him. "They only control Shanghai and Beijing but they have vast military support. Our current goal is to remove the rebel military and restore control of the government to the People's Legislature."

"Daniel, can you really let this happen? Committee has been controlling the world powers since the 1950's; arrogantly they force their ideals on the entire world. Their ambitions have killed billions worldwide; don't you want to shatter their control?" Doctor Gao urged.

Daniel did want to help, he understood that this "Committee" seemed to be behind both Second Impact and the events on January 1st, but at the same time he was fearful. What could one person do against an organization that commanded most of the world powers? Daniel looked around at the others in the train car; they all seemed to be waiting on his answer. Daniel swallowed his fear. "How would I be able to help?" He said, resigned.

"You will be the instrument of Committee's downfall." Doctor Gao said vaguely.

Daniel wanted something more substantial than that. "Yeah, that really doesn't tell me anything." His anger bubbled forth; Daniel rose to his feet and began to shout at Doctor Gao. "Stop being so vague! Just tell me what you want!" He wanted to beat the old man for dragging him into such a situation.

"Daniel calm down, we'll explain everything." Charles attempted to sooth his rage.

"Tch, he's mad. What a kid." Sekito said coldly.

Daniel attempted to calm himself; he took a deep breath and sat back down. "Ji, can you hit that guy for me?" He pointed at Sekito.

Ji responded with enthusiasm. "With pleasure." And proceeded to smack Sekito upside the head.

Sekito was surprised that Ji had actually hit him. "Hey! What the hell, why are you taking orders from a kid?"

Daniel chuckled, his anger abating. He quietly arranged his thoughts as the train sped towards its destination. He reflected upon what he learned just a half hour earlier and turned the events over in his mind. With the exception of Sekito he enjoyed the company of everyone he had met in Nerv-Beijing. Doctor Gao was mysterious but seemed to mean well, Daniel couldn't think of a reason he'd have to lie about the events surrounding Committee or Nerv-Tokyo. These two facts led Daniel to his conclusion. _Helping them is the best thing to do._

Daniel opened his eyes. "Doctor, I'm sorry, I lost my temper." Daniel began apologetically. "I can definitely see where you're coming from, the world is better off without Committee."

Doctor Gao bowed his head and smiled. "I am glad that you agree."

Daniel was still curious about one last thing. "But, how do you expect to fight them? You said that they have a large military presence in Shanghai and Beijing, and they must have more of those…Evangelions? I think you called them? So what's your plan?"

"Several of my contacts in the military are ready to back us up in an effort to liberate Shanghai and Beijing; we'll be relying on our trump card to deal with the enemy Evangelions though." Ji said calmly.

"So we're going to war then? That's a scary thought." Lena mused.

Charles laughed nervously.

Sekito gave a silent nod.

Several minutes later the bullet train ground to a halt and arrived in a station very much like the one in Nerv-Beijing. The party began to disembark and silently headed into the station.

Daniel was the first to break the silence. "So where are we headed."

The Doctor spoke up. "We'll be basing our operations here, the Beijing Gamma site, formally known as Nerv-Primum." Doctor Gao continued to issue orders as the group made its way to a heavy security door. "Charles, Lena, some of our researchers are waiting for us in the complex; you two will lead our research, with my assistance of course."

They both replied quickly. "Of course Doctor."

The Doctor took a skeleton key that was overlain with circuits from his lab coat, he inserted it into the door and it slowly began to open. "Ji, as always, you are our tactical commander. Daniel is your ward, we'll commence a live start up test as soon as we break topside. It's unlikely that Committee knows where Primum is, but if they do we'll have a fight on our hands. Get him ready."

Ji bowed to Gao. "Yes Doctor."

The door opened to a rather plain looking hallway with an elevator on each end, Daniel really expected more from a place called Primum. Daniel jumped in surprise as the security door slammed and sealed behind them. "Fuckin' gave me a heart attack." He swore.

"Ji, take Daniel to the hangar and initiate standby." The Doctor ordered. "Lena, Charles, and Sekito, you're with me, we need to start up the Magi and disengage the weights." He motioned for them to follow him to an elevator.

"Let's get going Daniel." Ji said as he began to walk to the elevator at the opposite end of the hallway. "We need to get to the launch bay."

"And what exactly will we be launching?" Daniel said as he pressed the elevator call button.

Ji grinned a little wider but said nothing.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Alright, whatever."

They stepped inside the elevator. "Floor B2, Mars level." Ji commanded the elevator.

Daniel caught a glimpse of the elevator floor buttons. "This place has 30 floors? Isn't that kinda huge?"

"Nerv-Primum is quite a bit bigger than our Beijing branch, we were in the process of moving our staff and computer systems to this facility. The plan was to make this place our new headquarters in 2017. Committee's attack sped up our timetable."

They stepped out of the elevator and continued to make their way towards the launch bay. "Doctor Gao said something about Magi? What's a Magi?" Daniel asked.

"I don't know much of the technical details myself, but basically the Magi are a trio of supercomputers gifted to us by our benefactor. They are capable of logic and handle many of the important decisions we face while conducting research. We moved ours from the Beijing labs to Primum several months ago. Ah! We're here." The door they reached slid open. "Behold! Our trump card." Ji said grandiosely.

The room Daniel had been led to was a massive holding room dominated by the presence of Evangelion 0-01. It was knelt down on one knee, and was nearly close enough to touch. The room had a ceiling that looked as if it could be retracted.

"Evangelion 0-01, Second Generation Alpha Build. It is the product of a joint construction operation by Nerv-Beijing and Nerv-Hamburg. There are none others like it, and this one is yours." Ji mused.

Daniel was completely overwhelmed. "I can't use that…" The machine looked like a monster; the way the armor looked made Daniel sick. _Those teeth…are those stitches? _Daniel thought faintly.

"The only way to fight an Evangelion is with other Evangelion. We don't have anywhere else to run; the only option that remains is to fight." Ji encouraged him.

Daniel tried to talk his way out. "You do it. You pilot it; I'm no good at fighting. I'd just mess up." He said nervously.

Ji smiled. "If I could spare you the experience of piloting I would. But I cannot. Our defense relies on you. All you have to do is follow my orders; if you do, you'll be fine." He said calmly. "But first you need to suit up, can't have you going into battle wearing your pajamas."

Daniel flushed red. "Well I got woken up at 4am, wonder whose fault that is."

Ji ignored this and walked over to several lockers that lined the wall. "Here" He said while opening the locker. "While you're piloting you'll need to wear this." He extracted a small zipped up package and tossed it to Daniel. "Oh and I almost forgot, you'll need this as well." He pulled the Advanced Functional Feedback headset from his jacket pocket and handed it to Daniel. "You know how to put that one on right?" He asked.

"Yeah." Daniel said as he adjusted the headset under his hair, the lights on each end of the headset lit up a light green. Daniel unzipped the small package and a large rubbery suit fell out. Daniel held it up by the shoulders and examined it; it had the same flesh like look of the Evangelion and felt creepy to the touch. The suit was a deep blue with the same white stylized lines drawn through it as the Evangelion; the upper-back of the suit was emblazoned with a headline of "Alpha Build" with an upside-down triangle etched around it. "Do I really have to wear this?" The thought of putting it on made Daniel's skin crawl.

"It's for your own protection; the suit has its own life support system and will allow you to control the beast better."

"Ugh, alright, turn around then." Daniel ordered.

Ji rolled his eyes and looked away.

Daniel sighed inwardly as he shrugged off his pajamas and donned the suit. "It really doesn't fit all that well." Indeed it felt at least a few sizes too big. "Do you really have to call it a beast? That doesn't really make me want to pilot it." He said while stuffing his pajamas in a nearby locker.

"There should be a small button on the right cuff; it'll automatically adjust the size. Sorry, that's the nickname we came up with."

Daniel pressed the button and the suit instantly tightened. "Ah, that's almost uncomfortable. Any way I can make it a little less tight?" Daniel said while trying in vain to adjust the collar area of the plugsuit. "Wait, you nicknamed a giant weapon? I don't even know why I'm arguing about this." He added.

"Take the lift over there" He pointed at a small lift on the right side of the room. "I'll open the piloting area for you." Ji instructed as he took the small remote device out of his pocket.

Daniel walked forward onto the small single person lift and it began to move slowly. The lift drew closer to the Evangelion and stopped abruptly near the back of the Evangelion's neck. Daniel was nervous being so close to such a large, monstrous, weapon; he half expected it to come to life at any moment. "Now what?" He called over to Ji.

The facility shook violently.

"Not again!" Daniel said as he held onto the lift, he fully expected another Committee attack.

"Not yet! We're not ready!" Ji called angrily into his radio. "Sorry Daniel, that was Charles. He must have thought it would be funny to empty one of the ballasts without permission." He sighed and tapped his remote device.

The effect was immediate, two of the fleshy patches near the back of Evangelion 0-01's neck widened for a moment and the entry plug twisted out. The hatch opened in front of Daniel as if it expected him to board immediately.

Daniel was sickened. _That's where I have to go?_ "Ji! Sorry I can't go in there." He laughed nervously and stepped back from the plug. "Ji?" Daniel looked over to where he was just a moment ago. "Where'd he go?" Daniel asked himself.

"Daniel, it's me." A familiar voice called to him through the headset. "Ji? Where'd you go?" Daniel asked aloud, unsure if the headset was transmitting.

"Well I had to leave the room. In a few moments we'll be opening the main ballasts and surfacing. That room you're in will be flooded with water, so you see I had to leave otherwise I'd drown." He chuckled. "I suggest you get in the Evangelion if you don't want the same to happen to you."

"What!? God dammit Ji!" Daniel yelled, but there was no response, the connection had been cut off. He looked at the entry plug, and tried to will himself to get in.

The facility shuddered again, this time it felt much closer to Daniel. The ceiling started to shake and small droplets of water began to fall from the sealed area of the ceiling.

Panic hit Daniel; he knew he had no choice. He closed his eyes and stepped into the plug; as soon as he had sat in the pilot's seat the plug hatch closed and sealed itself. Daniel was stuck in the darkness of the plug. He heard the sound of a radio channel opening.

"Hey Daniel, it's us." Charles' familiar British accent filled the plug. "We'll be initiating start up now."

"Can you get the lights on in here?" Daniel called through the channel. The darkness was unnerving.

"Yeah just give us a minute." Charles' called back. "Alright! Fixing entry plug position."

Daniel felt the plug shudder and fill up with an unnatural light. He couldn't really tell where the light came from.

"Beginning phase one connection…successful. Artificial S2 Engine running normally, Evangelion 0-01 starting up in patch mode." Lena said over the connection in her heavy German accent.

Daniel could hear a slight humming coming from all around him.

"Now Daniel, I'll ask you not to panic, we will be filling the plug with a liquid breathing solution momentarily. Just try and breathe normally." Doctor Gao called over the radio. "Injecting Lilim Connection Liquid." The plug began to fill with LCL.

Even when told not to panic Daniel had a hard time keeping it together. He closed his eyes as the orange liquid passed above his face; it felt cold and left a lingering taste in his mouth. "Terrible." He remarked as he began to force himself to breathe the liquid.

"Commencing phase two connection." Sekito's drawl filled the plug. "Headset connecting to subject's Parietal and Occipital lobes…Complete, A10 connection is good. Nerve connections are normal, bundling ocular nerves with 0-01. We're all green, language set to English." He finished.

Brilliant lights filled the plug, Daniel was momentarily stunned, he squinted for a moment and allowed himself to get used to the light. Just as soon as they had come the lights died down and the sight of the hangar greeted Daniel, except everything was in black and white. "Is everything supposed to be monochrome?" Daniel called over the channel.

"This is patch mode; it's for fixing interface bugs and improving software performance." Charles answered back. "Patching action potential interface. Patch completing in ten seconds. Done."

Color came to the world.

"Base synchronization rate is 6.23%, functional synchronization at 9.34%. Daniel you are free to operate." Lena announced.

"Uh, alright." Daniel had no idea what he was supposed to do. The Evangelion stayed on one knee.

- Nerv-Primum, Moon level (Command Center) -

"He's just sitting there. Should we really release the ballasts?" Charles asked for direction.

"Yes, he'll have to learn how to move sometime." Ji ordered as he entered the command center.

"Alright, beginning to surface Primum. Releasing all ballasts, all personnel brace yourselves!" Charles called out to the other researchers.

- Daniel's End, Mars level (Hangar and launch levels) -

Evangelion 0-01 still hadn't moved. The ceiling began to open in earnest; slowly water began to pour in from the widening ceiling.

Daniel could hear what sounded like explosions in the distance. The ceiling stopped opening for a moment. He heard a slight creaking sound, and then a huge bang echoed from just above him. The ceiling had forced itself wide open; the room flooded with water, Evangelion 0-01 took the deluge head on. "Agh, dammit." Daniel felt as if he was off balance, he did the only thing natural; he reached out for the Evangelion controls as if to stop himself from falling. _Just gotta stay on my feet._ He thought desperately. The water hit Evangelion 0-01 and knocked it back, the Evangelion answered Daniel's prayer, it straightened up against the water and regained it's balance.

"We have movement! It's moving!" Charles cheered. "All ballasts released, detonating locks. Brace yourself Daniel." He called into the radio.

Evangelion 0-01 looked up at the ceiling. Daniel could just barely make out the light of the sun shining through the water. Seconds later another massive explosion seemed to resonate from all around him. Daniel could feel the water rush around him as if he were on the outside. Soon the Evangelion was fully submerged; he could see fish through the clear water. _I'm on the ocean floor._ He thought with amazement.

After all the locks were released Nerv-Primum began to float upwards.

Lena's image popped up in the main viewing area. "We'll be surfacing five kilometers off the coast of China, near the port of Tianjin."

The sun was now close enough to touch. The giant armored island, Nerv-Primum surfaced, vents at all sides drained off the excess water it took on through the surfacing process.

Ji's image appeared in the viewing area. "Looks like we're clean, no Committee presence, don't expect it to stay that way for long. Detonating outer level bulkheads, you may want to back away from the wall Daniel."

More explosions filled the air; Daniel attempted to draw the Evangelion away from the back of the hangar. Needless to say he failed miserably, small charges on the wall of the hangar detonated and he felt the Evangelion get pushed back by the force of the explosions. Evangelion 0-01 fell flat on its back; Daniel could hear Charles and Lena laughing over the radio. He felt embarrassed. _Come on, get up! _He thought angrily. Slowly the Evangelion sat up and faced where the bulkhead used to be. The edge of Primum sat slightly in the water almost as if it were a Metallic beach, the water reflected off the sun beautifully. In the far distance, he could see a large city and several massive ships. The sight stole Daniel's breath away. "Amazing."

Chapter 6 End.

Doctor Gao's research notes.

A.T Subjugation Module – Enhances a pilot's control over an Evangelion by simultaneously weakening the contact experiment soul and strengthening the pilot's control. An Evangelion fitted with a subjugation module cannot refuse to operate. Additionally the subjugation module enhances synchronization by up to 50%. (For example, a 10% synch rate would become 15%). This new synch rate is called the "Functional" synch rate.


	7. In Defense of Primum

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion.

-Nerv-Hamburg, February 7th, 1:03 am GMT+2-

Conrad Wilhelm sat in his plush office chair, spinning occasionally, he had tried to sleep but found it difficult with all the problems that demanded his attention. Wilhelm was having a bad day; all of his attempts to recover data on the Second Generation project had proved futile. His success at installing a sympathetic president in China and the destruction of Nerv-Beijing garnered some praise from his fellow Committeemen, however he had received reports that the facility had been abandoned before it self destructed. _I'm always a step behind. _He lamented.

Wilhelm knew what he had to do, find the prototype build; he also knew it was in China somewhere. _And China will be mine soon. _He thought with some satisfaction. Feng had proved to be a useful tool, he had managed to corner Huangdi and drive him out of China. The staff of Nerv-Beijing was cut off from the rest of Seele; to Wilhelm it was only a matter of time until the prototype was back in his hands. His thoughts were interrupted as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. "This is Wilhelm."

"Sir! We've found the prototype build." His subordinate said anxiously.

Wilhelm was overjoyed. "Excellent! Where was it found?" His problems were solved. Or so he thought.

"Well, you might want to check the Chinese video feed." His subordinate said shakily.

Wilhelm excitedly tapped through his laptop; he opened the Chinese video feed expecting to see his soldiers retaking the prototype build. Wilhelm was sorely disappointed with what he saw; the video feed was from an allied Chinese military helicopter that was hovering above a massive artificial island. The edges of the island were covered with heavy armor plating that hid what was underneath them, several spires spattered the island and the center of the island had a coliseum size, almost glassy, dome structure. "That is MY design!" He yelled angrily. It seemed that the prototype Evangelion wasn't the only thing stolen from his base in Hamburg. "And that!..." He spotted the fully active Evangelion 0-01 standing at the edge of the island. "Is also MINE!" Wilhelm had never experienced such disrespect; he planned to deal with this quickly. "Deploy UN forces! Send Mass Produced Evangelion! Get some aircraft carriers in the area, and do it quickly! Tell Feng to do whatever it takes to sink that damned island and retake our prototype!" He yelled into the phone.

"Yes Sir!" His subordinate said quickly.

Wilhelm ended the call, still fuming at the humiliation of having two of his creations stolen.

-Nerv-Primum, Several kilometers off the coast of China, 7:03 am GMT+8-

Evangelion 0-01 silently faced the city of Tianjin. _This has to be some sort of wacked out fuckin' dream._ Daniel thought desperately. He closed his eyes and concentrated on how he was feeling, it felt as if his body was heavier or more awkward than it was supposed to be, he could "feel" the air outside the Evangelion but the sensation seemed fake. The lingering taste of the LCL wouldn't leave his mouth; he was connected to the beast. Daniel was snapped out of his reverie by Doctor Gao's image appearing in a small window at the bottom of the main viewing area. "Daniel, we'd like to start collecting data. Try walking."

Daniel opened his eyes and nervously placed his hands on the controls. _Move you bastard! And stand up straight! _At first there was no response, thenpainstakingly the Evangelion rose up to its full height and began to walk in a slow stride.

-Nerv-Primum: Moon Level-

The massive command level of Nerv-Primum lay out before Doctor Gao; a holographic display depicting the areas of Primum as well as functionality filled much of the center of the dome that was the command center. Along the tiered edges of the command level scores of researchers and personnel worked at stations that monitored everything from Primum's water intake to Magi analysis of Unit 0-01 synchronization. "It almost feels like we're back in the Beijing labs." He reminisced. "Sekito how is the subject's performance?"

Sekito looked through several holographic screens displaying vital data, neural chemistry and synchronization levels. "Synchronization seems fine, he's just nervous. He doesn't seem to be manifesting an Absolute Territory Field yet but that's probably due to his suboptimal synch rate."

Doctor Gao nodded. "That's only natural; anyone would need some time to get used to the sensation of piloting." He queued up his transmission. "Now try running."

-Primum: Outer Level-

Once Daniel got over the fact that he was in a giant robot it was actually quite pleasant. _A bit faster now!_ He urged the Evangelion forward and around the metallic outer rim of Primum, gradually it began to pick up speed. Daniel slowed the Evangelion as he spotted a huge ship in the distance that appeared to be moving slowly towards Primum. "Hey look it's a ship! Doctor Gao are you seeing this?" The Evangelion mirrored his curiosity and pointed its huge hand at the ship.

"Daniel watch out! Move!" Ji blared through the channel as Daniel heard the sound of guns firing from the distance.

"What? It's pretty far away I don't think-" Daniel was interrupted by an explosive shell landing a few meters away from the Evangelion. "Alright! Alright! Getting out of here." He fumbled at the controls; the Evangelion began to move away from the explosions. _Faster! Get me away from here! _He mentally ordered. The Evangelion began to move a bit faster. "Okay I'm-" His voice caught as he saw a blur of motion in the left corner of his eye. An explosion rang out; Evangelion 0-01 was thrown back across the hull of Primum by a direct hit from the battleship's cannon. "God dammit!" Daniel yelled angrily. The left side of his body felt numb, almost as if he had been slapped in the back too hard. "That really hurt!" _GET UP STUPID!_ The Evangelion pushed itself up and regained its footing as more explosions rang out near it. "Ji! Can you do something about that?!"

-Primum, Moon Level-

"You heard him! Back up our pilot! Bring rail cannons online, hand targeting over to the Magi. Fire when ready!" Ji barked orders to his security personnel. "No doubt we'll have more on the way!" He saw an enemy helicopter on the radar. "And shoot that helicopter out of the sky."

-Primum: Outer Level-

Several of the armor plates that lined Primum rose up to reveal sleek rail cannons. They audibly began to gather energy and released just as quickly, massive blasts rang out as the rail guns fired on the battle ship. The cannons shots were true, Daniel blinked and the prow of the battleship was blown away. The rail cannons gathered their strength and took aim at the military helicopter that had been relaying Primum's location to the rebel Chinese military. Another shot and the chopper was scattered into a thousand pieces. "So Ji, I'm curious, why did you need me for defense?" Daniel asked while watching the pieces of the helicopter fall into the ocean.

"Once you get fully acclimated to the Evangelion I'd expect you to be able to do the same sort of thing." Doctor Gao said confidently.

"Heh, I don't think I'd ever be able to do stuff like that." Daniel said as he watched the battleship sink. More cannon flashes near the Tianjin port caught his attention. "Are those ships firing on each other?" Several more ships sank into the water as Daniel watched. _If they were just bit closer…_ His thoughts were answered as the main viewing area zoomed in and gave Daniel a better look at the destruction. Indeed multiple Chinese ships were engaged in combat and several had already been sunk.

"Well it looks like my contacts have arrived." Ji said smugly. "Hail them. Open lines of communication." A communication channel opened between the loyalist ships and Primum, Ji spoke rapidly in Chinese with the captain of the ship then queued his transmission to Unit 0-01. "The ships approaching are our allies; we'll be landing at Tianjin and beginning our push to retake Beijing. From there we'll be heading to the rebel military headquarters in Shanghai, do you have any questions about this operation?"

This all seemed very sudden to Daniel. "We're fighting already? But I don't really know what I'm doing." He said sullenly.

"You'll learn as you go along." Ji said sternly.

"Hey don't worry bro; you have me and Lena as your backup. Oh and Sekito, he loves you too, as long as you've got us there's no way you can lose." Charles encouraged Daniel.

For once Lena agreed with Charles. "Yeah!"

Sekito seemed unenthused. "Tch. I guess." Charles and Lena shot him cold glances.

Daniel felt reassured with the technicians on his side. "T-thanks everyone." He said sheepishly.

"Head to the west side of the island, you'll rendezvous with the flagship Eminence there." Lena's holographic screen gave a loud beep. "Wait, hold on! We have incoming, pattern blue, five of them." Lena called to Ji.

"From where?" Ji asked calmly.

The holographic depiction of Primum changed to show five red arrows high above the island. "Above us, five Mass Produced Evangelion heading our way, they'll be on us within 45 seconds."

"Have the rail guns start targeting cores, maximum muzzle velocity. We need to take them down before they land. Doctor Gao ordered.

"Looks like Committee wants to stop us here." Ji said grimly.

Daniel was confused. "Pattern what? What the hell are you two babbling about?" At his side a rail cannon aimed upwards.

-Primum: Moon Level-

Doctor Gao put his hand on Ji's shoulder and whispered to him. "Let one through."

Ji acknowledged him by nodding. "Of course Doctor."

-High above Primum (but descending rapidly)-

_Maim!…Kill!_ Primal urges flooded the mass produced evangelion, the clouds cleared and Primum came into view. _Much closer now!_ Its whale like face split into a grin.

The last thing it heard was a loud bang as several massive spiked rails pierced the core of the Mass Produced Evangelion nearly knocking it out the back of its body. Its descent grew uncontrolled and it fell limply towards the ocean. The other MP Evangelion attempted to evade but the Magi assisted rail cannons were infallible. More thunderclaps sounded, three more lifeless Evangelion fell off target. Only one remained, in the back of its brain it thought itself lucky. It slowed its descent and began to circle.

_Engaging target_.

-Primum: Outer Level-

"Don't see that every day." Daniel remarked as the dead Mass Produced Evangelion fell into the ocean. A shadow passed over Evangelion 0-01; Daniel whirled around and spotted the seagull like form of the MP Evangelion circling him. "Hey Ji, you missed one." There was no response; the rail cannon beside Unit 0-01 ignored the enemy target. Daniel looked back to where the Evangelion was circling just a moment ago. "It's gone?"

_Spill its brains…right through its head… _The MP Evangelion disengaged its wings and fell towards Unit 0-01 heavy spear in hand. As it neared 0-01 it raised it's spear, ready to slam into it while fully utilizing it's falling momentum.

Daniel turned at the last moment but not quick enough; the MP Evangelion slammed its spear into the side of Unit 0-01's neck sending it flying back across the surface of Primum.

Daniel felt as though someone had taken a blunt sword and hit him at the base of his neck. He felt a sharp pain as he brought his Evangelion back up to its feet, and by the time Unit 0-01 reached its full height the pain was a dull ache. He grit his teeth through the pain and took a moment to look at his enemy up close; it looked especially creepy when it was closer, it's tongue lolled as it slowly circled Unit 0-01 like a wolf circling prey.

Tension mounted until without warning the MP Evangelion dropped it's spear and charged. _Don't let it hurt me!_ Daniel thought as the MP Evangelion drew closer. Unit 0-01 caught the enemy Evangelion and held it back. "Help me! What happened to being my back up?" Daniel called angrily into the channel. Silence met his pleas.

The MP Evangelion slobbered and gnashed its teeth; it managed to pull itself loose from Unit 0-01's grasp and push forward. A sickening chomp could be heard as it closed its teeth around Unit 0-01's shoulder and began to tear at it.

"Agh!" Daniel was feeling the feedback from his Evangelion. It felt as though someone was closing a vice around his shoulder. Tears formed in his eyes, the pain was very real.

-Primum: Moon Level-

"We need to stop this; he's getting his ass handed to him!" Charles yelled at Ji.

Lena had her face turned away from the viewing screen but said nothing.

Even Sekito assented. "They're right. It's too soon to push him into combat."

"Just one more minute, and I promise we will." Ji hadn't expected the three of them to raise so much hell.

"How is the armor holding up?" Doctor Gao asked impassionedly.

Lena still wasn't watching the fight but she tapped through her pc. "Armor is holding just fine, Magi predict a 0.0004% chance that the MP Evangelion will be able to pierce it."

"You see, he'll be fine. That obsolete Evangelion will never be able to inflict any serious damage upon him." Doctor Gao said in a very matter of fact tone.

"He's in pain though." Sekito started to argue, and then noticed something on his holographic monitor. "Oh? Synchronization is up by 5%."

"This is experience; Daniel needs it." Ji said stoically.

Doctor Gao turned to Sekito. "What about the pilot's brain chemistry? I'd like to acquire some data on Sympathetic mode."

"We might be able to induce a sympathetic reaction but it could be dangerous for the subject." Sekito said as if to dissuade them from trying it.

"Do it." Ji commanded.

Sekito sighed. "I'm doing this under protest." But still he tapped the command and sent it on its way to Unit 0-01.

-Primum: Outer Level-

Daniel couldn't move his left arm, the pain from having it act as a chew toy was intense, the most he could do was hold the MP Evangelion back with his working right arm.

Unbeknownst to Daniel the normally green lights on the sides of his headset turned a dark blue and began to send small electrical impulses into his brain. The change was immediate, adrenaline flushed through his body, his pupils dilated and he could feel his heart beat faster. Endorphins rushed to suppress his pain and suddenly the vice around Daniel's shoulder felt more like a light pressure. Daniel forcefully ripped the Evangelions shoulder out of the MP Evangelion's mouth and succeeded in dislodging some of its teeth. It roared in pain and staggered back with its mouth bleeding.

At the sight of the blood an impulse forced its way into Daniel's brain, mass amounts of dopamine flooded his head, he felt amazing, the sight of the blood produced an intense euphoria that rushed through his body. The final product of sympathetic mode was the most prominent; acetylcholine levels in Daniel's brain spiked, his energy felt limitless, the heavy awkwardness he felt from the moment synchronization started had lifted, controlling the Evangelion felt light as a feather. Daniel released the Evangelion controls and began to laugh, he didn't know why he was laughing, his mind was utterly blank, lost in a cloud of pleasure.

Unit 0-01 slouched, the corners of its mouth curled up slightly, blood leaked from the sides of the stitching. The MP Evangelion took this as a sign of weakness and rushed forward recklessly. _You will die now!_ It gripped Unit 0-01 by the shoulders and opened its maw in an attempt to bite Unit 0-01's head.

_Now! _Daniel quickly gripped the Evangelion controls and it responded by grabbing the MP Evangelion by its jaws. _Twist…twist! _Daniel madly urged the Evangelion as it wrenched the top and bottom halves of the MP Evangelions jaw in different directions. A sickening pop could be heard as the MP Evangelion's jaw broke; Unit 0-01 redoubled its grip on the helpless Evangelion and began to tear it in half starting from its jaw. The MP Evangelion attempted to get loose but the struggle was futile, another pop and a tear could be heard as the MP Evangelion was torn in half from its jaw to the base of its neck. "YEAH! THAT'S IT!" Daniel yelled hungrily as blood fountained up tinting the viewing area a dark red. The resistance of the MP Eva's muscles excited and enraged him at the same time; he gripped the controls harder and pushed his second generation Evangelion to keep to its task. Every tendon and bone broken heightened the sick pleasure he took in tearing it to pieces, the feeling was glorious.

With a final rip Daniel finished his grisly work; the MP Evangelion lay in two piles at the feet of 0-01. At long last a voice transmitted to Unit 0-01, it was Ji. "You need to destroy its core." An arrow appeared on the viewing area directing Daniel's attention to the core. "Otherwise it'll regenerate."

Daniel followed the arrow and noticed a bright red sphere in the right half of the seemingly dead body. He pushed Unit 0-01 towards the sphere and brought its foot down through it, the pieces of the MP Evangelion gave a small shudder and fell silent. "HA! YES! You're not coming back from that!" Daniel commented excitedly.

The headset lights turned back to a light shade of green as Daniel came down from the high of Sympathetic mode, his breathing slowed and the mass dopamine levels in his brain dropped off. The excitement he felt from tearing the MP Evangelion to shreds dispersed and was quickly replaced with disgust. He could vaguely feel the blood on the hands of Unit 0-01 but unlike a few moments ago it revolted him, the sight of the MP Evangelion made him heave, the pressure of the LCL felt suffocating, his breath quickened.

"Daniel calm down, you're on the verge of hyperventilating. Take slow deep breaths." Sekito said over the communication channel.

All five senses were screaming at Daniel, he let go of the controls and his hands shook uncontrollably, he tried to slow his breathing but failed. _I don't want to see this!_ He retook the controls and attempted to face Unit 0-01 away from the gruesome sight but the Evangelion didn't respond to his commands. His head felt light and his vision darkened.

-Primum: Moon Level-

"Pilot is unconscious due to hyperventilation. Highest synch rate during Sympathetic mode was 14.38%." Sekito informed the Doctor.

Doctor Gao seemed satisfied. "Retrieve Unit 0-01, we will proceed with the Beijing operation without it. Ji, tell your contacts that we'll send our own backup for them."

"Yes Doctor." He bowed.

-February 8th, 3:46 pm. Primum: Mercury Level (Staff quarters)-

Daniel awoke to the sound of an unfamiliar ring tone; he sluggishly pushed himself up from the bed and observed his surroundings. The room he had been placed in was somewhat like his quarters back in the Beijing labs in that it had most of the comforts of home. It did not however have a window. _No window…_ He thought to himself as he remembered the cavern view, Daniel would have liked a bit of sunlight. He grabbed the still ringing cell phone off the stand next to his bed and answered it. "Hello?"

A friendly voice greeted him. "Hey bro, it's Charles! Just calling to see how you're doing, you were out for a while."

"I think I'm ok. Where are you?" Daniel could hear what sounded like arguing on Charles' end.

"Right now I'm in Beijing with the rest of the staff, Ji's doing some…negotiating." More yells in the background could be heard. "I just wanted to ask if you'd like to have dinner with us when we get back."

Daniel was pretty hungry and having dinner with the technicians sounded like a fun idea. "That'd be amazing, when are you guys heading back?"

"Probably under an hour, we're wrapping things up here." Several gunshots could be heard in the background. "Bloody hell, I gotta go."

Daniel tossed the phone aside and got up to check out his lodgings and find a change of clothes, he was wearing a stupid sort of hospital gown that looked too much like a dress. He walked over to what looked to be a sliding closet and opened it, inside were several of the black suits that Ji seemed to be fond of. Daniel would have preferred a simple pair of jeans and a tee shirt but he was sick of the dress so he tossed it off and threw on the closest suit. He felt something in the jacket pocket and found a red tie, after ten or so minutes he had given up on trying to knot the tie and threw it back in the closet. He found his shoes nearby and put them on, finally he inspected himself in a nearby mirror. _I actually look kinda smooth._ He regarded himself with some satisfaction, the suit stirred a memory in Daniel, it reminded him of his father's suit that he saw the day before he left for China.

Daniel felt like a jackass, his father probably waited a whole day at the airport and was probably worried sick. Daniel rushed to the cell phone he had previously abandoned and dialed his father. As the phone rang he tried to think of what he'd tell his father. _Sorry dad, I'm fighting an evil organization in a giant robot, oh and Second Impact was a cover up._ He laughed at the sheer absurdity of how it sounded.

Finally after several rings his father's voicemail activated. "You've reached the voice mail of Greg-" Daniel ended the call; he wanted to be able to talk to his father directly, a message just wouldn't do his tale justice. He put the phone in his pocket and went to the door, the headset he used while piloting was hanging on the door along with a small ID card.

"My ID card?" He flipped it over and checked the picture; apparently his ID picture had been taken while he was asleep. The shot was a full on drooling sleep picture. "Why do I help these people again?" He asked bemusedly. Still he pocketed the headset and clipped the ID card to the front of his jacket. For once Daniel didn't have anything to do, he also had no idea where he was going as he wandered the halls, not having any of the technicians around was boring. _Maybe I'll pay a visit to my friend._ After searching for about 15 minutes he found an elevator and boarded it. "Um, Mars Level please." No response from the elevator, he spotted a card swiping area near the elevator buttons and swiped his ID card through. The elevator began to descend. After about a minute of waiting the elevator finally opened. "I remember this hall!" Finally feeling like he knew where he was going he continued down to the Evangelion enclosure.

The door to the enclosure slid open to reveal a large open air hangar, Evangelion 0-01 was knelt down as it was when Daniel first saw it. Several of the patches of flesh around its fingers were stained red and Daniel remembered how he won. _I really fought…And I won._ He thought with some pride. "But still, next time let's win in a less messy way." He said under his breath.

Now that Daniel had piloted the Evangelion, it really wasn't all that scary. "Ya know, you're really quiet, why not speak up more?" He didn't expect it to answer but talking to it gave him something to do. "I can't believe I fought like that, I was just so angry." He mused. "Guess it was just my instincts or something." He leaned against the rail overlooking the kneeling beast. "Do you have a name? I'm thinking no, why don't I name you? You look like a Bob." He gave a small laugh. "Hey Bob, My name's Daniel."

The newly christened Bob was completely silent.

"It's cool I know you're just stunned at your amazing name. I get the feeling we'll be great friends, and don't worry; I'll talk for the both of us." He gushed. "You're like freakishly tall… I wish I was more like you, but without the stitches and all that and possibly more human." He said while pointing at the Evangelion's horns. "Oh, and two eyes." He added. "What do you do with seven eyes anyway? I mean what's the point?" His cell phone rang. "Oh! Hey this is Daniel!" He said as he answered the call.

The voice on the other end had a familiar German accent. "Hi, Charles wanted me to give you a call. We just got back; you wanna meet us at the cafeteria for dinner?"

Daniel was happy they were back; if she hadn't called he would have gotten food without them. "Yeah, but where is it? I still don't know my way around all that well."

"Find an elevator and take it to the Venus level, most of the staff are up there so it should be pretty easy to find someone to tell you where to go."

Daniel figured that was simple enough. "Alright, cool, I'll get there. Bye Lena."

"Yep." She said as the call ended.

"See ya Bob." He waved to the Evangelion and headed back to the elevator.

The trip up to the cafeteria was uneventful, Daniel managed to find a staff member who spoke English and got directions. He quickly reached the door to the cafeteria. "These hallways are confusing; they need more signs in these places." He complained as the door opened.

"I know right? I'm glad I have a map on my pda or I'd get lost all the time." Charles said to a surprised Daniel.

Charles and Lena had snuck up on Daniel. "I made it here before you guys?" He asked.

Charles sighed. "Yeah bro, Doctor Gao had some work for us to do, he's a real slave driver."

Lena commented on Daniel's clothes. "Look at you, you're a fully fledged pilot now, you'll fit in well."

This embarrassed Daniel a bit. "Really! I think they look too much like Ji's clothes." Daniel said as he looked himself over. "Oh Yeah! Almost forgot, which one of you did this?" Daniel showed them his ID picture.

Both of the technicians took a look at the picture and started laughing.

Daniel tried to impress the seriousness of the situation upon them. "It's not funny, I look terrible."

"We'll get that fixed for you, let's go and get some food." Charles said as he pushed Daniel into the cafeteria. "Wait until you see Sekito, I think he has kitchen duty today."

"That's impossible." Daniel said as he tried to imagine Sekito in a chef's uniform. "No, no, there's no way." He started to laugh.

Charles laughed and continued. "Well we all pitch in for the kitchen, every day a new chef is chosen as a community service to Primum, even Doctor Gao and Ji put their time in. And I'm pretty sure Sekito has kitchen duty a few days from now."

Daniel was impressed that researchers would cook as well. "That's pretty cool." He was disappointed that he wouldn't get a chance to make fun of Sekito in a chef's uniform and made a mental note to ask Lena exactly when he was working.

The cafeteria was fairly nice, several of the tables had engineers and technicians talking with each other, some spoke in Chinese but Daniel could hear others speaking English, Finnish, German and other languages he couldn't recognize. "Very diverse work group you guys have here huh?"

"Most everyone here has a PhD of some kind and are experts in their respective fields, Primum is a haven for these individuals, they are given free rein to study and invent whatever they like." Lena explained.

"Is that why you work here?" Daniel asked as they walked to the ordering line.

"Yeah, me and Charles were invited to work here when we finished our PhD program." She turned her attention to a kitchen worker. "I'll have the green salad please."

Charles thought for a moment then said. "I'll go for the clam chowder."

Caught on the spot Daniel asked. "What do they serve here?"

"Just ask for whatever you want." Lena said flippantly.

"Uh, a sandwich please… how about ham, yeah I'd like a ham sandwich." Daniel told the worker who nodded to him.

"Come on let's get a place to sit." Lena pointed out a nearby table.

The trio sat down and began to wait for their food. Daniel broke the silence. "So how did Beijing go? Considering I've been asleep the past day and a half I'd like to know."

Charles updated him on the situation. "Even with the loyalist Chinese forces on our side it was difficult, but we managed to liberate the city. The original plan was to have you lead our MP Evangelion into the city but well, that didn't work out."

Daniel felt like he was missing something. "Sorry, MP Evangelion?"

"MP stands for Mass Produced; the Evangelion you fought was a Committee MP Evangelion." Lena told him.

"One green salad." One of the kitchen staff called out,

"Right here!" Lena left the table to get her food.

Daniel was incredulous. "So there's more of them?"

Charles nodded. "Yeah, lots more." He said as if it was common knowledge.

"I barely beat one…How would I handle more?" Daniel said desperately.

Charles had an air of confidence around him. "Listen, you just need practice, I bet in a few months you'll be wiping the floor with MP Evangelion." He continued "One thing you should know is that they can't hurt you." Charles said simply.

Daniel remembered the pain of the MP Evangelion biting his shoulder. "It hurt pretty bad when that thing bit me back there."

Charles sighed. "What I meant was that aside from some superficial damage the armor your Evangelion is equipped with cannot be pierced, burnt or penetrated, hence, you aren't in any real danger. So technically, as long as you can take the pain you can fight as recklessly as you want."

It still sounded pretty bad to Daniel. "That sounds dangerous, why do I have to feel the pain anyway?"

"It's really complicated." Lena said as she retook her seat.

Daniel wasn't really satisfied with that but he let it go.

"Ham sandwich and a bowl of clam chowder!" The kitchen staff called out again.

"Ah! Over here!" Daniel yelled back as he got up and retrieved the food.

"Thanks" Charles said appreciatively when he got back to the table with their food.

"No problem, so who pays for all this? I mean Primum and everything." Daniel asked as he took a bite of his ham sandwich.

"We are funded by an organization called Seele, whose primary mandate is to oppose the expansion of Committee." Lena answered.

Daniel drew a blank. "Seele? Never heard of them, what do they do?"

Charles smiled. "Not sure myself, I try not to think about it."

"So what does Committee control? Doctor Gao just said that they controlled world powers, I think I need a better explanation."

"By world powers he meant most major world powers with the exception of China. I'm pretty sure they control Germany, Russia, Britain and the United States. Of course there could be others, why are you so interested?" Lena shot back.

Daniel figured it was time to get to the heart of the matter. "Well most of the people here, including yourself and Charles, come from those nations; doesn't it feel like you're betraying them?"

Charles took the challenge of answering his question. "Not really, you see we're fighting Committee not the country, so it's more like we're liberating our home countries from outside influence. Look at yourself; you may eventually have to fight U.S citizens."

Daniel hadn't thought of it in that way. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." He took a few more bites of his sandwich.

"Having lunch I see, you should try the grilled chicken." Doctor Gao said from behind them.

The three of them whirled around to address the head researcher. "Hey!" Daniel greeted him. "How was Beijing.?" He asked.

"Very flat, well now anyway, the remaining Committee soldiers detonated an N2 weapon in the middle of the city, Ji and I are lucky we left when we did." He said in relief.

"Are you serious? Why would they do that?" Charles asked the doctor.

"I think they want to put the blame on us." He said grimly. "A bombing will focus public hatred on us and justify harsher action. In that vein, finding evidence that the bombing was a Committee operation will be an objective for tomorrow." He looked at Daniel. "We'll be relying on you Daniel, your briefing begins at noon tomorrow; now if you'll excuse me, I need to get some rest." He turned and left them stunned.

Both Charles and Lena looked at Daniel slowly. "Don't worry I won't faint this time." He reassured them as he finished his sandwich. Several minutes later he had excused himself and headed back to his quarters. Once there he turned on the television and tried not to think about what he might have to do the next day.

Chapter 7 End.

Doctor Gao's Research Files

Functional Headset - Sympathetic Mode

Sends electrical impulses into the pilot's brain which prompt the release of acetylcholine, adrenaline, endorphins, and dopamine. While Sympathetic mode is active the pilot will experience little to no pain from injury, increased strength and will, the inability to become exhausted and reception of pleasure when injuring the enemy. Sympathetic mode can only be activated if the Sympathetic Nervous System is active (If the pilot is under stress). Caution! Sympathetic mode is highly addictive due to dopamine and extended activation may be harmful to subject health. Side effects may include but are not limited to: euphoria, stroke, heart attack and death.

Nerv Primum Facility

A first generation armored artificial island. It is protected by an array of rail cannons that can act as weapons or defenses (Such as shooting down missiles or bombs if an attack occurred); and 15 Primum produced MP Evangelion as well as one Second Generation Evangelion. The facility has nine different areas in a concentric ring design with the center being the command area. The blueprints were stolen by NAMEREMOVED from the Committee operated Nerv-Hamburg facility and built in secret by Nerv-Beijing staff originally as an escape point. As interest in the artificial island grew it was chosen to be the new headquarters of Seele-China staff starting in 2017.


	8. Shanghai Offensive

Sorry about taking so long on this chapter, had some midterms.

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion. **Bolded text** is dialogue in Russian.

-Nerv-London, Committee Operated. February 7th, 8pm-

Seven monoliths marked as "Committee - Sound Only" appeared, as one by one the members of Committee prepared for a full assembly.

"In the absence of the Co-Chairman I will call this meeting to order." Vladimir said sternly. "Our agenda for this meeting is focused on coming up with a solution for the situation in China. Trial Committeeman Jieshi, please bring us up to speed on the current situation." He asked.

Jieshi was on pins and needles for his first Committee meeting; he knew very well that if he failed to perform his duties it would not end well for him. He took a steadying breath and began to speak to his colleagues. "Thanks to your help the military in China is split in two, one side is under my command and the other sides with the staff of Nerv-Beijing based in the new island facility." A holographic projector displayed a small scale model of Primum for all the Committeemen to see. "Committee Co-Chairman Wilhelm recently dispatched several UN battleships and Nerv-Hamburg MP Evangelions, the results…" The middle of the Committee meeting area was filled with images of sunken battleships and dead MP Evangelions floating in the China Sea. "Were less than satisfactory, this facility has defenses that completely nullify any attacks I have ordered, bombs are shot out of the sky and N2 weapons would be dangerous to civilians who live in the Tianjin area. If anyone has any ideas they would be welcome."

The Committee room was silent so Jieshi continued. "This man." The projector displayed a small model of a grinning man of Chinese descent. "Is responsible for the forces of China splitting in two, not much is known about him, in communications we have intercepted he is referred to as Jian Shan, we ran this name but we haven't found any records so far, all we know is that he's very influential and appears to be friendly with the Chinese Generals who oppose our occupation. Our defenses in Beijing were quite extensive. The rebel armies had Beijing under a state of siege for about a day but could not break into the city. That was until 4pm our time, when we detected a missile launch from the island. Minutes later the city of Beijing was wiped off the map along with 30% of my men." The projector showed a topography map of a flattened Beijing. "We evacuated what citizens we could but noncombatant casualties are expected to be very high." He finished grimly.

"Was the prototype Evangelion spotted?" Naruhito demanded.

"It was last spotted at 7:30 am our time when it defeated one of our MP Evangelion, it fell silent soon after and was recovered by rebel forces." The projector switched to a holographic recording of Unit 0-01 defeating the MP Evangelion. "Most conventional weapons do not seem to have any effect on the prototype; it shrugged off several hits from the MP Evangelion and didn't seem fazed by cannon fire."

"It's very sluggish." Alfred commented as the Evangelion took a hit from the battleship cannon.

Edward chuckled and added in. "I agree, all it seems to do is take hits." He said as the recording showed the MP Evangelion ripping at Unit 0-01's shoulder.

"The pilot is clearly inexperienced; Asuka would run circles around him." Alexander stated proudly, then noticed the recorded 0-01 grab the MP Evangelion by its jaws. "Ach mein Gott! Turn it off!" The recording faded as the second generation Evangelion began to tear the hapless MP Evangelion in half. "Okay, maybe we should deploy Unit 02."

Some agreements were muttered.

An eighth monolith activated. "Please forgive me for running late, critical research demanded my time." Wilhelm said brusquely.

Several of the other members greeted him.

Vladimir got straight down to business. "We were discussing deploying Unit 02 to China, what would your thoughts be Chairman."

"That would be impossible; Unit 02 is still under heavy reconstruction. Anyway I'd like to see the trial member prove himself on this front." Wilhelm said dismissively. "Trial, I understand that the rebel faction will attempt to take Shanghai soon, how will you prepare yourself?" He asked of Jieshi.

"Several of the MP Evangelions you gifted to us are still in service defending Shanghai, what is disturbing is the rebels use of N2 weapons without regard to civilians, in that regard we will focus on missile interception. Additionally one of the deciding factors in our loss of Beijing was the fact that the island's rail cannons could fire upon targets in the city; our Generals do not believe the rail cannons will be able to fire into Shanghai. We are preparing our defenses at the moment; once we stop their offense we will begin our attempts to retake the area surrounding Beijing and find a way to gain access to the island." He explained.

"Very well, we will send additional reinforcements; we cannot allow China to fall to Seele. Above all you must capture the prototype; I will be working on a way to counter a rail gun attack in anticipation of your victory." Wilhelm said confidently. "For now that is all. Trial Jieshi, you are dismissed."

Jieshi wasn't fond of being dismissed so quickly but he held back a retort. "Yes Chairman." His monolith grayed out, indicating he had cut his connection.

"He's going to die. You know that right?" Vladimir asked the Chairman.

Wilhelm laughed and queued his microphone. "Well look at who he's up against, Doctor Emmanuel Gao, he almost had my job. Regardless, China is an acceptable loss if it ends with recovering the prototype, speaking of which, Vladimir are your Special Forces ready?"

"The trap has been set according to your specifications; I have a group of Spetsnaz in Shanghai who are waiting to carry it out." Vladimir responded in his thick Russian accent.

Wilhelm was confident in his trap but felt the need to prepare for a worst case scenario. "Excellent. In any case, Naruhito, please ensure that Japan and Nerv-Matsushiro are ready to mount an offensive, I predict that Seele will want to get their hands on the original Magi system."

"I will contact General Katsuragi immediately." He replied curtly.

"Do we have any information on the pilot?" Arthur asked.

"All communications between the island and the Evangelion were heavily encrypted, I'll tell my team to work on data interception, we might get an opportunity to learn more if the prototype is deployed to Shanghai." Vladimir answered, and then continued. "Keeping the pilot's identity a secret must be high priority for them."

"Yes, if we could just find out who the pilot is…" Arthur wondered aloud.

"Probably someone from the Chinese military." Edward offered.

Wilhelm was at his limit for speculation. "Alright, enough, we will reconvene in two days when the China situation has been resolved. Committee, you are dismissed." His monolith grayed out.

After his dismissal the rest of Committee disconnected.

-Nerv-Primum, February 8th, 10:30 am-

"Come on, wake up, you'll be late. Tch, lazy kid." Sekito said as he nudged Daniel awake.

Daniel rubbed his eyes. "Why do I have to wake up to you? That's just cruel." Seeing Sekito the first thing in the morning wasn't Daniel's idea of pleasant. He checked the cell phone next to his bed. "It's 10:32, can't I sleep some more?"

Sekito was not in the mood for negotiation. "No, you need to get ready."

"Okay, okay, can you give me a couple?" Daniel wanted a shower.

"Sure. I'll wait outside." He began to walk over to the door. "Make sure you remember to bring the headset." He said as he left the room.

"As if I'd forget that." Daniel muttered disparagingly as he got up and stretched. He figured he had enough time to take a quick shower and get dressed. He pulled himself out of bed and trudged over to the bathroom.

About five minutes later Daniel had finished getting dressed and grabbed the headset on the way out of his room, to his displeasure Sekito was waiting outside. "I can get to the Mars Level on my own; I don't really need an escort." He began to walk to the nearest elevator.

Sekito followed and gave a sly laugh. "Mars Level? What do you expect to do? Run to Shanghai? We'll be heading to the Outer Level."

Daniel's curiosity overcame his dislike of Sekito. "What's on the Outer Level?"

"You'll see when we get there." Sekito enjoyed keeping him in suspense. "Outer Level." He commanded the elevator as they stepped inside.

They reached their destination quickly. "About time you guys got here." Lena greeted them as the elevator door opened.

"The kid wanted to take a shower." Sekito said as he stepped out of the elevator and climbed a short flight of stairs.

"Well showers are important." Daniel said as Sekito disappeared up the stairs. "So what's going on?" He asked Lena as they followed Sekito up the stairs.

"Ji will apprise you of the situation on the plane." She said as they reached the top of the stairs and stepped out on the hull of Primum.

Salty air blew across Daniel's face as he looked out over the sea. "Cool." He said as he took in the sight. Several sunken battleships were still in view but for the most part the sea reflected the sun beautifully. "Wait we're taking a plane?" He asked remembering his fear of heights.

"Yes, Evangelion 0-01 will be airlifted to Shanghai and assist in the assault." She said as if it was nothing.

Daniel gave a nervous laugh. "Airlifted huh."

"Come on. You'll synch up mid flight, expected arrival time is an hour and 45 minutes." She pulled him towards a very large wing shaped plane.

As Daniel got closer he could see Ji and the rest of the team standing by near a much smaller, jet looking plane. He waved to Ji. "Hey!" He greeted him.

"Hi." Ji said slyly.

"Sup bro." Charles waved back.

"And now that the pilot's here we can begin. Ji brief him, technicians; get ready for takeoff." Doctor Gao commanded. "We'll head out as soon as Daniel is loaded up." He motioned for the technicians to join him in the smaller plane.

"Please follow me." Ji steered Daniel over to the wing type plane, and up a small flight of boarding stairs. Once inside he opened a sealed door and began to climb a short ladder. "If you haven't heard you'll be airdropped into Shanghai." He smiled in a reassuring way as he unsealed a hatch at the top of the ladder. "There's a room to your left, get your suit on and come up when you're finished."

Daniel walked to his left and entered a small hatch; the room inside was like a tiny fitting room. His plugsuit was hanging on a small hook across from him, he changed out of his clothes and pulled on the plugsuit, clicking the button on the wrist as he finished. Next he adjusted the headset under his hair and heard the tell tale click of it becoming active. He was about to leave until a flicker of doubt crossed his face and he went for his discarded jacket and pulled his cell phone from the pocket.

Daniel dialed his father quickly. "Come on, answer. Please." He pleaded quietly, several rings later the same voice mail he'd heard the last two times he called played. Daniel waited the message out and expected the beep but something quite different happened.

"Voice mail is full. Please call back another time." The recorded message played.

"What? How?" He said in surprise, Daniel's father was the type to get back to someone right away, his voice mail being full didn't make any sense at all. "I really wanted someone to talk to." He lamented as he leaned against the door. "Fine, whatever." He said in frustration as he left the changing room and headed for the ladder.

Daniel could see the sky out of the top of the hatch. _I don't have a good feeling about this._ He thought as he climbed the ladder. At the top he poked his head out and looked down the plane; the back of Evangelion 0-01 was sticking out from the top of the plane, entry plug half inserted.

Ji was waiting next to it; he took a small folder from his jacket. "As I was saying, you'll be airdropped into Shanghai, currently our naval forces are blocked off from Shanghai, and we need their support. Hence, your primary objective is as follows: destroy the land and sea based defenses that prevent our navy from landing, and after that's complete you will head to the center of Shanghai and help us secure the Committee central headquarters."

Daniel raised his hand, the first objective was self explanatory but he was confused about the other. "Who's us?"

"Charles and I will be escorted into the Committee server building; he will be looking for evidence of Committee operations around the world and information to clear our name of the Beijing bombing." Ji explained. "I would also like to make it clear that you'll be dropped into a war zone, your main focus should be the Committee MP Evangelion, we can handle the rest. Fight to kill and you'll be fine."

A small shiver ran through Daniel's body as he heard the word "kill".

Ji checked his watch. "Now if you don't have any other questions you are free to board."

"Actually, Ji, I wanted to ask a small favor." Daniel said hesitantly.

Ji lightened up, the tense atmosphere of the briefing lifted. "Anything, go on."

Daniel took the phone he still had in his hands. "My dad, I don't know, I think something happened to him. Doing this." He motioned at the exposed entry plug. "Is cool and all, but I want to make sure my dad is ok." Daniel thought that he sounded childish. "He hasn't been answering his phone, would it be possible to check up on him?" He said anxiously.

Ji smiled, it was quite unlike his usual grin, it seemed a lot more sincere. "Of course, I will have someone check on him." He took the phone from Daniel's grasp.

"T-thanks." Daniel's face was burning, he grit his teeth and held back his emotion.

"Don't worry; your father will be fine." Ji patted Daniel's shoulder as he made his way to the open hatch. "If you find yourself in an unwinnable situation you are clear to retreat, be careful out there."

"I will." Daniel said as he strode towards the open plug hatch, his confidence renewed, he didn't want to hurt anyone but if Ji was going to help him check up on his father he figured he could repay him by trying his best in combat. _That'd be ok, right?_ He asked himself as he took his seat and closed the plug hatch behind him. "Nice to see you again Bob." He said aloud.

"Alright just sit tight, we'll be in the air momentarily." Charles called through the headset's communication channel. "Let's get a map up for you."

The plug filled with a soft yellow light and the main viewing screen came online displaying a simplistic map of the flight path and time remaining till the mission began. _Two hours in here?_ Daniel thought in dissatisfaction.

Daniel held back his nervousness as he felt the plane pick up speed and leave the ground, a small yellow line began to trace from the starting point on the map heading towards Shanghai.

Ji's voice entered the plug. "One thing I forgot to mention, Chinese troops will be involved in the fighting, the real problem is that they're both using the same equipment and uniforms. Generally speaking if someone shoots at you, you are free to engage, but please pay attention to the computer targeting we want to limit friendly fire."

Daniel fidgeted nervously. "I-I see." He sat back in the pilot's seat and tried to stay calm.

The technicians were getting ready for the assault in the accompanying jet; meanwhile Lena and Ji were in the middle of a heated argument. "So basically you're telling him to kill everything he comes across? He's 14; don't you see a problem with that?" Lena shot at Ji.

"I'm telling Daniel what must be done, without him all our plans are dead in the water." He said tersely.

Lena turned to Charles for support. "This is unethical. Charles, you agree, right?"

Charles looked nervous. "Uh, Well."

Before Charles could continue he was interrupted by Ji. "When you signed up, you knew the stakes. Backing out is not an option, would you rather have the world belong to Committee?"

"Tch, straw man argument." Sekito added.

Ji dropped his usual grin and scowled at Sekito. "Who's side are you on? You knew what Emma's sacrifice would bring and by the way it's not a straw man, how could we expect to stand up to Committee without the massive advantage a second generation Evangelion provides."

"We have dozens of MP Evangelion, we don't have to put the subject through this, it's trauma and you know it. And you." She pointed at Sekito. "You know the effect of Sympathetic mode, using it on a child is plain malpractice."

Sekito wasn't pleased to be dragged into the argument. "Yeah, please excuse me for giving Daniel what it takes to win. You're too-"

"Please, stop arguing." Doctor Gao interrupted them. "We are a team, we should act like it." He turned his attention to Lena. "Lena, I informed Daniel of everything we knew back at Beijing, you were there. Was I deceptive in any way?" He asked fairly.

"Well…no." She said slowly.

"I don't think any of us expected him to handle Sympathetic mode so well, or pilot as well as he did the first time." Charles said as he worked at his tablet pc. "He's a tough kid, he'll be fine.

"I concur." Ji said confidently.

"Fine." Lena said resignedly, she still didn't like using a child as a subject.

"We will be upfront with Daniel regarding his purpose; honesty is always the best policy. If the Committee problem could be solved by throwing MP Evangelion at them I would do so in a heartbeat, but that won't be enough. He must fight if we are to expose Committee to the world." The Doctor said reassuringly and took a calming breath. "For now let's get ready, Daniel will be relying upon us during the assault."

This seemed to break the tension, Lena nodded sullenly and started up her tablet pc while the rest of the team continued to prepare.

-An hour and 45 minutes later-

Daniel had managed to get twenty minutes of sleep before he was awakened by Charles calling his name. "Daniel, we're just about there, start up will begin soon."

"Alright." He said as he checked out the main screen, the plane indicator was just about on top of Shanghai. The nervousness that Daniel felt during takeoff was back and gnawing at the back of his head, he tried to keep his mind off the situation at hand. He wondered what his friends were doing while he was about to be airdropped into a war zone. _Probably nothing interesting._ He thought smugly.

"Alright here we go, just relax, beginning express start up." Charles announced.

The plug shuddered as it fully embedded itself in the Evangelion's back and began to fill with LCL. Daniel took a deep breath and closed his eyes as the LCL filled past his face, after which he drew a few choking breaths before fully breathing the solution.

Ji began the countdown. "Operation beginning in three."

Daniel felt the feeling of heaviness associated with synchronization all over his body.

"Two."

The main viewing screen began to come online, Daniel could only see darkness.

"One."

Daniel couldn't hear the final count but he sure as hell felt the feeling of weightlessness around him. The moment he opened his eyes he was filled with a sinking feeling. "Oh god." He said mechanically as he saw just how high he was. He had been dropped from above the clouds, the city below him was just a speck on the map occasionally lighting up with explosions from the battle that currently raged around its perimeter.

_This can't be happening._ He thought as he slammed his eyes shut. "The plan failed, I'm going to die aren't I?" He said hopelessly.

"Well no, not really. Didn't we tell you that you would be airdropped?" Ji's voice called calmly over the radio.

"Well yeah! But I figured the plan would involve some sort way to survive hitting the ground!" He yelled back angrily through the communication channel.

"You should just calm down, don't get so worked up. We have a plan." Doctor Gao said soothingly over the radio.

Daniel took several shaky breaths and opened his eyes. _They know what they're doing._ He thought as he attempted to calm himself.

-Several kilometers from Shanghai; Nerv-Primum Temporary Assault Center-

The command center consisted of several mobile command units flanked by Chinese troops, Ji was busy barking orders over his radio and surveying the battlefield via satellite imagery, Doctor Gao was having a talk with the Chinese General in charge of the operation, and the technicians were trying to calm Daniel over the radio all while Sekito monitored his vitals and synch rate.

"Functional Synch rate is 17.52%, that's a bit lower than we'd like for a combat operation but we'll work with what we have." Sekito commented. "For what it's worth he's also terrified out of his mind; I'd expect a slight rise when he's back on solid ground."

"When will he reach the intercept point? We need to know when to order the main offensive." Ji asked the technicians.

"Unit 0-01 will be there in exactly two minutes and 36 seconds, our sea based MP Evangelions are ready, AT fields are fully harmonized…There's no reason why this shouldn't work." Charles called back to Ji.

"Alright set the mission counter! We begin our push to the Committee command center in exactly two minutes and 35 seconds!" Ji shouted over to the Chinese General who acknowledged him by nodding and calmly began relaying Ji's orders to his communication staff. "The Evangelions will create chaos and draw enemy troops away from the command area; while they're away we'll be breaking in and taking their command by force. Do not attempt to take survivors, kill combatants on sight." The General rushed to call the orders through, Ji turned to Charles. "Get a bulletproof vest on; once the main offensive pushes to the Committee building we'll be heading in for the objective."

Charles looked nervous but he nodded and began to pack up his gear.

-One minute later, free falling towards Shanghai-

Daniel had managed to calm himself to the point where he could keep his eyes open for longer than a few seconds without panicking, the synchronization was an incredibly alien feeling, he knew he was inside the plug but as the Evangelion fell he swore he could feel the shadow of the wind running through his hair. He took the controls as Shanghai drew ever closer.

Lena's voice filled the plug. "Daniel we'll be breaking your fall in ten seconds, brace yourself."

"What!" Daniel was still quite a distance from Shanghai. _Are they gonna break my fall from here? _He thought as he gripped the controls and braced himself. Ten seconds felt like an eternity, a ruffle of feathers and a blur caught Daniel's attention. "Not these again!" He said as he oriented Unit 0-01 to face his new enemy. Daniel expected more of the whale heads but what he saw completely caught him off guard, they looked somewhat like the regular MP Evangelions but their color scheme was a dark blue with black sploches that led up to a head that seemed to be covered in a long beak-like mask. Their fingers ended in very sharp talons and the eye holes in their masks glowed with a deep crimson, all four of them moved to surround the falling Unit 0-01, they squawked maddeningly and Daniel felt a hum of energy around him, the Evangelion righted itself and its fall slowed.

"May I present our Guardian-class Mass Produced Evangelion, units zero through three in attendance." Doctor Gao said through the channel as if he were doting on a child.

The bird faces creeped Daniel out, but he didn't comment. His fall slowed to a crawl and he drew just slightly above the buildings of eastern Shanghai, the eastern seaboard was alight with explosions as both sides naval forces clashed. _Well, guess I gotta deal with that. _

"Descending to the assault point, Daniel you are free to engage hostiles, our MP Evangelion have your six." Lena said as the hum dissipated and Evangelion 0-01 fell face first into the ground.

The feedback pain of getting dropped face first hit Daniel like a ton of bricks. "Yeah you could have let me down a little easier." He said sarcastically. _C'mon Bob, get up._ He ordered as he nudged Unit 0-01 back to its feet. "Whoa…" He said as he faced down the street and found a half dozen tanks and several assault helicopters facing back at him. He heard a man yell in Chinese and saw the tanks level their cannons in his direction. "Well that's no good." He said in disappointment.

A volley of cannon fire rang out and for a moment Daniel's vision was obscured by the smoke caused by the cannons firing on him, when his vision cleared the assault copters began to fire in his direction. "Can you please-" Daniel was in the middle of asking them to stop when one of the Guardian MP Evangelion rushed forward and swatted the helicopters out of the sky and into the tanks. "Well ok, that worked." Daniel said feeling like a spectator; he looked as the guardian MP marked "3" on its back tore through several more tank battalions and continued into the city ripping through buildings as it went.

"What's that one's problem? How is that-" In the middle of the attempted verbal bashing of the guardian, Unit 0-01 was pushed to the ground by another Guardian MP Evangelion. "What the fuck, are you defective? I'm tired of getting pushed to the ground!" Daniel raged as he brought Unit 0-01 to its feet. "Oh!" Daniel gasped in surprise as the unit marked "0" grappled with a newly arrived enemy MP Evangelion. "It protected me." He remarked as he realized what had happened.

Guardian unit 0 continued to struggle against the enemy MP Evangelion until the enemy Evangelion gave an injured howl, a clawed hand had extended through the middle of its torso spraying its innards across street where they fought, finally another clawed hand pushed through the right half of its chest gripping the MP Evangelion's core and shattering it in a single stroke. Blood sprayed from the back of the MP Evangelion onto the guardian marked "1", it gave a loud caw and gazed at Unit 0-01 with its head cocked to the side.

The sight of the eviscerated Evangelion made Daniel sick; he turned Unit 0-01 to face the seaboard, he could see several other MP Evangelion on the horizon and many more attacking what he assumed to be allied ships.

"Squawk!" The Evangelion marked "2" demanded Unit 0-01's attention.

"What! What do you want!" He asked as the Guardian MP continued to squawk. "God, this is like having a cat." He said as the large bird-like Evangelion squawked in his face.

"It wants instruction, they are obedient. Go on, tell it what to do." Doctor Gao instructed Daniel over the channel.

"Ok, well if you have the time go deal with those." He pointed Unit 0-01's hand at the besieged naval forces.

The Second Guardian clicked its beak and was gone in a rush of feathers. "Well that worked better than expected." _Maybe I won't have to fight at all._ He thought hopefully as he eyed the missile batteries that lined the eastern seaboard and mentally ordered his Evangelion to make its way over to them. Before Unit 0-01 made more than three steps the main viewing area lit up with a warning "Caution!" with an arrow pointing up. Panic flooded through Daniel as he faced upwards and spotted the wings of an MP Evangelion drawing closer. _Get back!_ He ordered and nearly immediately Evangelion 0-01 dodged backwards narrowly avoiding the cleave of an MP Evangelion's spear.

The MP Evangelion landed and furled its wings, it gave a strange roar and four more MP Evangelion marked "Nerv Hamburg" landed near the defenses that lined the eastern port. The new arrivals seemed heavier than the other MP Evangelion somehow, almost as if they were built to be sturdier, they held extremely sharp looking pikes and began to advance upon Unit 0-01.

"So much for not having to fight." Daniel sighed.

Guardian units zero and one flanked 0-01 as if to offer their assistance.

Daniel gripped the controls and tried to remember how he killed the other MP Evangelion. _Just have to do that again!_ He thought as he rushed out to meet the lead MP Evangelion. _Get the core!_ He thought as he drew back Unit 0-01's arm and smashed it into the right half of the MP Evangelion's chest, there was no rush of blood, Unit 0-01's fist slammed into the MP Evangelion's armor knocking it back but failing to pierce it's chest.

The MP Evangelion responded by letting loose a bloodcurdling roar and rushing forward while swinging its pike at Unit 0-01's head. Just before the pike reached Unit 0-01 it was intercepted by one of the guardians who held it back and tackled the MP Evangelion to the ground.

_That was almost it…_ Daniel thought shakily as another alarm sounded, he whirled around to where the alarm was directing his attention and found himself face to face with an MP Evangelion that had managed to attack from his blind spot; a vicious thwack could be heard as the MP Evangelion's pike slammed into the side of Unit 0-01's head. Daniel swore as the feedback pain reached him causing his head to throb, another thwack and the second generation Evangelion was floored.

More warning messages bombarded Daniel as he tried to get the Evangelion back on its feet. "No!" He yelled desperately as he faced upwards and spotted an MP Evangelion falling towards him pike first, he tried to get out of the way but was too slow, the sharp end of the pike crashed into the second generation Evangelion's abdomen causing Daniel a considerable amount of pain. He clutched his abdomen as the pike was driven downwards in an attempt to pierce the Zeruel composite armor, the resulting feedback pain wracked him, it felt as if someone was stabbing him with a blunted knife. _This is too much, I can't take it, I'm gonna die._ He thought in a panic as his hands left the controls.

"Don't let go of the controls! The pain isn't real; you need to fight past it!" Lena encouraged him. "Flick the wrist, do it!"

_That's easy for her to say._ He thought as he willed himself to grip the controls and commanded the Evangelion to grip the pike with one hand and flick the other's wrist; he immediately felt the Evangelion's wrist open and something fall into its hand. _A knife! Cut that pike!_ Daniel thought as he brought the knife up and slashed through the pike, the pain left his abdomen and he pushed the Evangelion up bringing the knife with it, blood splattered as it ran the length of the MP Evangelion's leg cutting its hamstring. The MP Evangelion fell to one knee in front of the second generation Evangelion.

"The core! Get the core!" Lena yelled into the channel.

A red targeting reticle appeared on the main screen highlighting the upper right area of the MP Evangelion's body. _Right there! _Daniel brought the wickedly curved progressive knife down right on the center of the reticle, he felt the knife glance into the MP Evangelion's core through the feedback and pushed it deeper, the MP Evangelion fought and pushed back but Unit 0-01 had leverage on its side. _C'mon just die!_ Daniel thought angrily as he urged the blade deeper into the MP Evangelions core, then without warning the core cracked. The MP Evangelion gave a low roar and fell silent.

_Well that's one._ Daniel sighed, relaxing his hold on the controls and taking a moment to breathe. The moment was over when the main screen lit up with a warning arrow drawing his attention to his back. "Another one!" He said as he spun Unit 0-01 around bringing the blood spattered knife with it. He expected an enemy behind him but was surprised to see the two guardian MP Evangelion losing ground to the Nerv-Hamburg MP Evangelion. _I see. They want help._ He thought as one of the guardians was knocked to the ground by two of the enemy Evangelion. "Show me the cores!" He commanded his Evangelion; in response targeting reticles appeared on the enemy MP's highlighting their core areas. _Those ones!_ He mentally pushed Unit 0-01 toward the guardian being overtaken by the two Hamburg MPEvangelion. "You two are first!" Daniel yelled as he leveled the knife in their direction and charged.

-Temporary Command Center-

"As long as he's not getting hurt he seems to be doing fine." Doctor Gao commented on Daniel's battle performance. "What's his synch rate like?" He asked Sekito.

"Functional synch rate is 21.29%, he's still a little nervous but nothing like two days ago." Sekito reported. "Neurochemistry looks normal and harmonics are good." He added.

Doctor Gao smiled. "Excellent, at least we know he can fight outside of Sympathetic mode. Lena, is he manifesting an AT field?"

Lena checked over her tablet pc. "These field readings are very weird; I get the feeling the subjugator is somehow acting on Daniel, inhibiting his natural AT Field. It's probably a leaking effect from the medium upon the pilot."

Doctor Gao looked concerned. "Can it be fixed?"

"Yeah, when Charles gets back we can look over the code again, it'll probably require a software patch anyway." Lena said matter of factly. "Speaking of the idiot have they breached the command center yet?" She said in a bored tone of voice.

"I believe so." He said affirmatively. "Let's check." He pulled a small radio from his lab coat and keyed it up. "Ji, come in, this is Doctor Gao requesting a status update. Over."

Several tense seconds passed until the radio crackled to life. "We're a bit behind schedule, we met heavy resistance on the way to the server area, Charles is currently gathering the intelligence, once he's done we'll be heading to the central command area." Several gun shots could be heard through the radio. "We've got another wave! Get ready!" Ji yelled, then spoke into the radio once more. "I have to take care of this, Ji out."

"Yeah they'll be fine." Doctor Gao said simply.

-Eastern edge of Shanghai-

Daniel pulled the knife from the core of the last Hamburg MP Evangelion, the guardian MP Evangelion squawked approvingly as they knocked down missile batteries and laid waste to the seaside defenses. "That really wasn't so bad." Daniel said aloud as he looked to the eastern sea. The allied ships were drawing closer and it looked like the resistance had thinned out. Still though, several MP Evangelion were heckling the allied fleet. "Why don't you guys go help." He acknowledged the two guardians.

They gave short squawks and flew off to join the battle.

"Lena, where should I head now?" He asked over the communication channel.

"Ji has just about seized the command building but your help would be appreciated, I'll mark it on your display." She said helpfully.

"Thanks." Daniel said as a beacon appeared over a large building in the distance. _Over there._ He ordered the Evangelion, sending it in the marker's direction.

Daniel attempted to limit the amount of damage to the surrounding buildings he caused as he made his way to the command center, he encountered very little resistance on his way, occasionally a soldier would shoot at the Evangelion but most simply scattered. "Just two more kilometers." He commented, then something hit him. "Hey Lena, what's a kilometer? Is that like a mile or something?" He asked.

"You can't be this stupid." Was Lena's exasperated reply.

"Hey! I've never used your crazy system of measurement before." Daniel replied back.

"It's not crazy; the metric system actually makes more sense because it's easier to make conversions." She said earnestly.

"Well I'll take your word for it." Daniel said dismissively.

"She's right, you're stupid." Sekito said in his usual drawl.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "I miss having Charles on the other end of the line, he was nice." He said sarcastically.

"One kilometer is .62 miles." Lena said calmly, as if she just wanted the conversation to end.

Daniel began to speak. "Well thank…"

Before he finished his sentence a loud beeping sound interrupted him, several messages displayed on the main viewing area. "ERROR #521 - FEEDBACK OVERFLOW" and "BUFFER FLOOD ERROR" displayed all around him.

"What the fuck." Daniel said as the feeling of synchronization left his body and the Evangelion crashed to the ground. "Lena? Sekito? You there?" He called out uncertainly as the error messages dismissed themselves and the plug went dark. "Ah, this is bad." Daniel said nervously as he heard gunshots from outside, the plug shuddered and Daniel felt it twist out from the back of Unit 0-01. Fear shot through him as the LCL vented itself from the sides of the plug. _I can't go out there._ He thought fearfully.

Outside four lightly armed soldiers wearing simple green GI's stepped out from behind the street corner where the Evangelion fell, the lead soldier queued up the radio strapped to his supply pack and began speaking in Russian. A short response was given; the lead soldier gave a dry chuckle and proceeded to call orders to his subordinates who began to secure the perimeter around the fallen Evangelion.

The lead soldier stepped closer to the Evangelion and took a grappling hook from his supply pack which he spun for a moment then released; it arced up and caught on the Evangelion's back. The soldier rappelled up quickly and ran the Evangelions back to the base of the plug; he examined it slowly and attempted to open it via the hatch, the hatch refused to budge. He pondered the situation for a moment then pulled a small electronic device from his pocket and connected a small plug to a matching socket near the entry plug hatch.

A few small beeps could be heard as the device began to digitally pick the plug's lock. The soldier examined the device in his hands and pressed a few buttons, in response the digital screen displayed a timer, 6:42, and slowly it began to count down.

-Temporary Command Center-

"We've lost contact with Unit 0-01, communication is completely cut off. How could this happen?" Lena asked desperately.

Doctor Gao visibly lost his cool. "Send MP Evangelion to investigate, we can't lose Unit 0-01."

The Chinese General shook his head and replied in slow Chinese. "Negative, all MP Evangelion are tied up at the moment defending the fleet."

The Doctor thought for a moment then took the radio from his pocket. "Ji, come in, we have an emergency." He turned to Lena. "Get me the last known coordinates of Unit 0-01"

Radio static blared out as Ji answered. "Yes Doctor? What's the problem?"

"Doctor! You should see this!" Sekito demanded.

"What is it?" The Doctor tore his attention from the radio and turned to the screen Sekito was pointing at.

The screen was playing a live feed from an allied helicopter; Evangelion 0-01 was sprawled across several streets in eastern Shanghai, the entry plug half visible. What really caught everyone's eye was the soldier crouched by the entry plug fiddling with an electronic device. The feed played for a few more seconds then the screen filled with static.

"They disabled it somehow, just shut it down completely." Lena remarked.

"We'll worry about how they did it later." He queued his radio. "Ji! Unit 0-01 is inactive due to a technical error; I need you to head to the coordinates…" He motioned for Lena to transmit the coordinates of Unit 0-01 to Ji. "We send you, take a small contingent with you, and do it quickly. We don't have much time before enemy soldiers gain access to the entry plug."

"Yes Doctor, coordinates received." He responded curtly, and then continued. "Things are just about finished here anyway; the rebel central command is taken and Charles is en route back to you."

At that declaration several of the Chinese Generals smiled and shook hands.

Doctor Gao was not in the mood for celebration just yet, the odds of a technical malfunction just happening to occur the moment Unit 0-01 was unguarded were too much. _This is Wilhelm's doing. _He thought grimly.

-Eastern Shanghai-

The soldier atop Unit 0-01 finished the cigarette he had been enjoying and tossed it from the top of the Evangelion. He checked the digital timer, thirty-two seconds left; he unholstered his sidearm and inspected it for a moment, then released the safety. An audible click could be heard as the digital lock pick finished its job and the plug hatch unlocked. The soldier straightened his gloves and wrenched the plug hatch open.

Daniel was momentarily blinded as the sun shone into the plug; he held up his arms to defend himself but was dragged bodily from the plug. His eyes adjusted to the sun and he looked to his captor, he looked to be in his late 30's with short grizzled stubble. He had bags under his eyes and a small communication device hooked near his ear. Daniel of course noticed the gun the soldier was pointing down at him, he eyed it apprehensively.

The soldier aimed his side arm at Daniel's face.

Fear shot through Daniel, he wanted to run but terror rooted him to the spot, he vainly covered his head with his arms. _Help, I need help. _He thought desperately, his hands shaking.

"**Covering your head won't help, not at this range"** The soldier said, knowing full well Daniel wouldn't understand, he drew the trigger back.

Daniel closed his eyes and cringed as the trigger was drawn back, he gave a short sob. The soldier leveled his gun and a single shot rang out. Pain shot through Daniel's right arm. "Ah!" He gasped and let his arms down. "What?" He said in surprise as he examined his right arm, the bullet that was meant for his head was crushed against the forearm of his plugsuit. _It's bulletproof?_ He thought. For a moment an impulse hit him to run for it, Daniel was halfway to his feet when the soldier floored him with a quick kick and pinned him in place with his foot.

"**A bulletproof suit? Didn't expect that."** The soldier heard the sound of a helicopter drawing closer. **"Sorry, but I have to end this quick."** He said lazily as he used his other foot to block the pilot's arm from protecting his head. The kid was pleading in English. _Using children in a war, such a shame. _He thought as he squeezed the trigger another time.

"Don't please!" Daniel was able to call out before the hammer drew back, a sound like a bird chirp caught Daniel's attention, he looked up in time to see the soldier's gun hand blown off.

Blood spattered across the top of the Evangelion as the Russian soldier was knocked to the ground by the force of the shot; he attempted to staunch the bleeding by wrapping his right arm in his jacket. **"Retreat! Get out of here!"** He snarled into his radio, he looked as if he were ready to say something else but never got the chance, another small chirp sound was heard as a bullet pierced the side of the soldier's head, blowing his brains out.

A few blood droplets landed on Daniel's face, he took a few ragged breaths, his eyes wide.

"Daniel! Are you alright?" Ji called through his headset.

"Ji! Yes, yes I'm fine." He said shakily.

"Sorry about that, I meant to kill him with the first shot. I haven't practiced using a sniper rifle in a while." He said in a playful apologetic tone.

"No, that was fine." Daniel said quickly as he spotted a helicopter getting closer, Ji was hanging out from the cabin, a long rifle slung over his shoulder. "How far away was that?" Daniel asked in amazement.

"About half a kilometer, good thing it's not windy today." Ji said as if it were nothing.

"Hey, ya know a kilometer is .62 miles." Daniel rambled, still a bit nervous from his close call.

About a minute later the helicopter reached the Evangelion, Ji pulled Daniel to his feet and brought him onboard.

"What about the Evangelion?" Daniel asked as they began to rise.

"It will be retrieved shortly, Charles will find out what happened." He said as took the rifle from his shoulder and took a seat.

For a short while they flew in silence, Daniel averted his eyes from the ground. "So… how did your mission go?" He asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"The mission was a complete success; we have complete control over Shanghai and the surrounding seas." Ji answered. "I hear you did well dealing with the MP Evangelion." He said casually.

"Y-yeah, I guess I did." Daniel said bashfully, remembering his performance in the battle.

"Daniel." Ji said seriously.

"Huh, yeah?" He answered.

"Take some pride in your work." Ji said as he clapped Daniel on the back. "What you're doing will change the world."

Chapter 8 End.

Doctor Gao's Research Notes

Composite Zeruel Armor Weave

Fiber based armor consisting of a Kevlar like material fused with the biological carapace material of the 14th Angel, Zeruel. Magnitudes tougher than conventional Evangelion plating and up to 30% lighter, provides extensive protection against radiation, energy weapons and physical damage. Capable of soaking over 150 terajoules of energy before igniting, also very unlikely to be pierced by any sort of edged weapon, the stitched areas require an alloy threading to stay together and are somewhat CONTENT REMOVED.

Guardian-class Mass Produced Evangelion, Units 0-3

Generation 1.5 Evangelion, home to personality based AI dummy plugs and built from failed second generation prototypes. They use upgraded dummy plug software and are capable of logic well beyond normal MP Evangelion, additionally they can think with some very limited independence but for the most part are dependent upon the pilot of Unit 0-01 for direction. Facial design based upon plague doctor masks, body design is similar to first generation MP Evangelion, though they are slightly heavier due to increased armor.


End file.
